
Class J 

Book Jt ,. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



MEMOIR OF! ROBERT M. T. HUNTER. 




Robert m. T. Hunter. 



A MEMOIR 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 



MARTHA T. HUNTER 

(His Daughter) 



ADDRESS ON HIS LIFE 

(Prepared for the Hunter Monument Association) 

BY 

COL. L. QUINTON WASHINGTON 



WASHINGTON 

The Neale Publishing Company 

431 Eleventh Street 

MCMIII 






r OF 

APR 20 

(X XXc. No. 

xS" £ 8 i vT 



i 



Copyright, 1903, 

BT 

The Neale Publishing Company 



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A^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 9 

Introduction to Mr. Micou's Sketch 10 

Birth and Ancestry 13 

Childhood and Youth — 1809- 1827 . 29 

Student Life 34 

Politics and Marriage 44 

Public Life 67 

Private Life and Letters .... jy 

Letters to His Wife 95 

From 1853 to 1865 107 

After the War 122 

Conclusion 136 

Addenda 138 

Colonel Washington's Address . . 139 



PREFACE. 

IN preparing this biographical sketch of the 
late Robert M. T. Hunter, my chief en- 
deavor has been to collect data and afford 
facilities for gathering information for a future 
writer. Acting as a pioneer in rendering ac- 
cessible such facts as may be necessary for 
the compilation of a complete memoir, I leave 
to a more competent judgment and more skil- 
ful performance to bring shape out of chaos, 
and, while using effective material, to reject 
what is worthless. 

Mr. Hunter's political career will not be 
followed in detail, and only such dates and 
references will be furnished as may be here- 
after needed by a biographer to describe the 
leading events and mark the most noteworthy 
acts and speeches of his public life. 

In writing this memorial, I have been much 
assisted by the valuable and admirable bio- 
graphical sketch written for the Richmond 
Dispatch, of December 13, 1891, by Mr. Hun- 
ter's friend and kinsman, Mr. A. R. Micou. 



! 
i 






F 



V 



INTRODUCTION TO MR. MICOU'S SKETCH. 

[A. R. Micou in Richmond Dispatch, Dec. 13, 1891.] 

The movement inaugurated to remove the 
remains of the late Hon. R. M. T. Hunter to 
some point near Richmond, and to erect an 
appropriate monument to his memory, will 
recall to many who have passed the meridian 
of life the exciting political contests of the 
three decades from 1830 to i860, when Whig 
and Democrat struggled for supremacy in the 
State and Federal governments ; when the hust- 
ings was the arena upon which the intellect- 
ual gladiators of each party met in fierce yet 
courteous debate, giving thrust for thrust and 
blow for blow. 

These battles were waged with varying for- 
tunes, sometimes one champion and some- 
times another winning the favor of the people, 
who turned out almost en masse to attend 
these forensic displays, the adherents of each 
in turn cheering themselves hoarse when some 
telling point was made by their favorite leader, 
and at another were hushed into silence by the 
magic power of their eloquence. In those 
days every Virginian was a politician, and 
every measure, State and Federal, was fully 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER II 

discussed upon the hustings, which was the 
great medium through which the people were 
informed upon public affairs. But few of the 
present generation, except such as have been 
students of history, will recall any memory of 
the questions which were discussed, or the 
history of the leaders of public opinion, and 
to many even the names of these intellectual 
giants are unknown. It may be not untimely, 
therefore, nor without interest to your read- 
ers, to give a brief sketch of the life and ser- 
vices of one who was an active participant in 
those contests, and who for more than twenty- 
five years was ranged on one side or the other 
of every important public question which di- 
vided the parties; who, after two terms of ser- 
vice in the State Legislature, served eight 
years in the House of Representatives, and by 
successive re-elections was for thirteen years 
a Senator of the United States, and subse- 
quently held high positions under the short- 
lived government of the Confederate States, 
jo that any who are unfamiliar with his career 
may better appreciate the motives of those who 
now seek to pay this tribute to his memory. 

ANCESTRY. 

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter was born 
in Essex County, Va., April 21, 1809. His 



-+- 






12 A MEMOIR OF 

father, James Hunter, was a landed proprietor 
of considerable means and high standing in 
the community, and his mother, Maria Gar- 
's^ nett, the daughter of Muscoe Garnett and 
Grace Penton Garnett, nee Mercer, was of 
the distinguished family of Mercers, of which 
the late Hon. Charles Fenton Mercer, the 
well-known philanthropist and a member of 
Congress from this State from 1817 to 1840, 
was one of the most prominent. So many of 
his family being in public life, the mind of 
the subject of this sketch was naturally turned 
to the study of current politics and the science 
of government. History and biography were 
always his favorite studies, but such was the 
activity of his mind, the comprehensiveness of 
his intellect and the retentiveness of his mem- 
ory, that there were few fields of learning that 
he did not invade, and fewer still were the 
subjects that he touched and did not thor- 
oughly master. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, the sub- 
ject of this memoir, was born on the twenty- 
first of April, 1809, in Essex County, Virginia, 
at the home of his maternal grandparents. 

This beautiful residence, fitly called Mt, 
Pleasant, was long the Garnett Homestead, 
and is worthy of detailed description. 

The large brick mansion stood on the sum- 
mit of the lofty range of hills overlooking the 
valley of the Rappahannock, and was built 
about 1734, on a large landed estate embrac- 
ing thousands of acres. The condition of the 
country did not admit of much artistic devel- 
opment of the grounds, but Nature had rich- 
ly endowed the situation. The hills, running 
parallel with the river, were broken and di- 
versified by deep and irregular valleys and ra- 
vines, the sides of which were covered with 
the varied and magnificent forest growth of 
the country. _ Oak, poplar, beech and hickory 
were densely enveloped with the almost trop- 
ical luxuriance of the wild grape and indige- 
nous creepers. Winding its broad and tor- 
tuous course through the immense and fer- 
tile valley, stretching from the foot of the 
13 



14 A MEMOIR OF 

range to its banks, the Rappahannock was 
visible for many miles, and across its glitter- 
ing waters lay the wide plains of Westmore- 
land County, extending back to the elevated 
and forest-clad spine of the Northern Neck of 
Virginia. Here amid these fair surroundings, 
Muscoe Garnett, the maternal grandfather of 
Robert Hunter, lived with his family. He 
had married Grace Fenton Mercer, the daugh- 
ter of John Mercer, of Marlborough, in Staf- 
ford County, Virginia, and seven children sur- 
vived him. His five sons were James Mercer, 
John Mercer, Muscoe and William (twins), 
and Robert Selden Garnett, and his two 
daughters were Maria and Fenton. 
Each of the sons inherited fine estates: 
James M. Garnett, the eldest son, owned 
Elmwood, one of the handsomest residences 
in Virginia, situated on a range of hills oppo- 
site to the Mt. Pleasant estate. 

John Mercer Garnett received the old home- 
stead as his portion, and Muscoe owned Pros- 
pect Hill, a beautiful place adjoining Elm- 
wood, while William and the youngest son, 
Robert, inherited adjoining estates lower down 
in the County of Essex, one called Rose Hill 
and the other Champlain. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 5 

The eldest daughter, Maria Garnett, mar- 
ried her cousin, James Hunter, the father of 
R. M. T. Hunter, and her sister, Grace Fen- 
ton, married James's younger brother, Mus- 
coe Garnett Hunter, her father's namesake, so 
that the families were very closely allied. 

Robert Hunter's mother was remarkable for 
her intellectual powers and strength of char- 
acter, and early developed a strong love for 
literature and desire for knowledge. At a pe- 
riod when women generally were not at all 
addicted to literary pursuits, she studied math- 
ematics for her own pleasure, and sold a high- 
ly prized gold watch to purchase books. Her 
mind was clear and logical, and tradition as- 
cribes the conversion of a clever infidel to 
Christianity to the force of her arguments. 
This may not, however, be vouched for as an 
historical fact. 

Two of her brothers, the Hon. James Mercer 
Garnett and Hon. Robert Selden Garnett, ably 
represented in the House of Representatives 
the district of which Essex formed a part — the 
former for two and the latter for five terms. 
James M. Garnett was a prominent writer on 
ethical and agricultural subjects. 

The paternal ancestors of Robert Hunter for 
three preceding generations were merchants of 



l6 A MEMOIR OF 

high standing in the social and business world. 
The family were of Scotch descent. An ances- 
tor named James, the great-grandfather of 
V James Hunter, of Hunter's Hill, who was Rob- 
ert's father, was born in the town of Dunse, 
Scotland, in 1661, and the family had amassed a 
considerable property in the course of long 
and extensive commercial transactions on both 
sides of the Atlantic. Robert Hunter's father, 
however, succeeded to such exhausted finances 
that during his earlier life his natural energy 
and strength of character were taxed to the 
utmost to etablish any degree of material pros- 
perity. His father, William Hunter, was one 
of four children, of whom the first, a girl 
named Mary, died in infancy. James, the sec- 
ond child, became a prosperous merchant in 
Fredericksburg, Virginia, and afterwards in 
Portsmouth of the same State. He married 
the widow of his cousin, Mrs^ Mariana Hun- 
ter, the daughter of a wealthy Englishman 
named Spence. William, the grandfather of 
Robert M. T. Hunter, came next, and, last of 
the four, a daughter called Martha. 

William Hunter married Sarah, a daughter 
of William and Anne Garnett, who lived at 
The Stone Chimney, in Essex County, Vir- 
ginia, on the estate afterwards called Cham- 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I'J 

plain. Mrs. Garnett, nee Rouzie or Rowzee, 
had married William, a half-brother of Muscoe 
Garnett of Mt. Pleasant, but she was a widow 
at the time of her daughter Sarah's marriage. 
Her wealthy brother-in-law seems to have 
aided her and his brother's children, but at his 
father's death in 1787 or 1788, the young 
James, a lad of fourteen, was sent to Ports- 
mouth to begin life under the auspices of his 
Uncle James, after whom he was named. His 
brother, William Garnett Hunter, after caus- 
ing his mother much anxiety, disappeared 
some years later, and his fate was never accu- 
rately known. In a letter to her husband's 
brother in Portsmouth, written in July, 1788, 
from Essex County, Virginia, the widowed 
mother mentions her two eldest boys in the 
following extract: 

I have no one to take care of my children, and 
have a disagreeable time of it, and I believe there is 
no happiness for me in this world. God only knows 
the trials I have to go through, and if it were not for 
my Uncle Garnett's 1 kindness to me and my chil- 
dren, I never should be in spirits to keep up. You 
may believe me, my dear brother, he is the only 
friend I have near me that is worth mentioning, and 
he is a father to your brother's children, and will do 
everything in his power for them. * * * As to 

iMuscoe Garnett. 



IO A MEMOIR OF 

James's 1 going with Mr. Nickolls, I have no objec- 
tion, if he has the smallpox before he goes. I know 
my dear brother is the best judge of what is for his 
good. I shall mention it to my Uncle Garnett when 
next I see him. I believe it will be agreeable to him 
if Mr. Nickolls will bear James's expenses, as I fear 
my uncle will not have it in his power to advance the 
money for him, as there are so many demands 
against the estate. I beg Mr. Nickolls will let James 
come up at Christmas to see me before he goes. I 
hope Mr. Nickolls will be a good friend to Jimmy; it 
is all the satisfaction I have to hear he is such a good 
boy. 

Billy is now at home with me, and he goes to 
school every day to learn to cypher. My dear 
brother, if you can get a place for him in Norfolk or 
Portsmouth, I hope you will. He says he will be as 
attentive to his business as possible, and it never will 
do for him to stay here, as it is impossible for him to 
improve himself in anything whatever, from the com- 
pany he must keep, if here he is obliged to stay; 
indeed, I had rather he was in his grave than to 
keep company with such idle, worthless young men 
that are about this place. I write my mind freely 
to you, my dear brother, and I write many things 
that I don't wish to be mentioned. I shall be happy 
to see Mr. Spence 2 and his lady whenever they visit 
me. 



!R. M. T. Hunter's father. 
2 Father of Mrs. James Hunter. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 9 

The boys are gone to school. Patsy sends her 
duty to her uncle and aunt, and love to her cousins. 
God bless you all, my dear brother, and believe me 

t0 be ' Your aff'ate sister, 

Sally Hunter. 

I wrote James last week, expecting Captain Liv- 
ingstone would go down, but he was disappointed. 

This pathetic letter veils the maternal anx- 
iety which the writer strives to repress in con- 
senting to her boy's voyage to the West In- 
dies, whither, soon after his arrival in Nor- 
folk, he was sent as supercargo. James Hun- 
ter was born March 14, 1774, and at the time 
of his mother's letter was only fourteen years 
old. Besides his elder brother William, al- 
ready mentioned, there were Taliaferro, born 
July 26th, 1776; Martha Taliaferro, born Feb- 
ruary 22, 1778; Muscoe Garnett, born April 7, 
1779, and Henry Garnett, born February 25, 
1783. This last child must have died early, 
as there is no further mention of him. 

James Hunter possessed strength of mind 
and will, with indomitable energy of character, 
which enabled him through life to withstand 
danger and difficulty. He early developed 
such promise of business ability that his uncle 
James adopted him as his special protege, and 
took him to Portsmouth to introduce him to 



20 A MEMOIR OF 

the firm of which he was a member. The tra- 
dition is that while on this, his first voyage, a 
storm arose threatening the vessel's destruc- 
tion on the Chesapeake Bay. His uncle, no- 
ticing symptoms of alarm in the boy, ad- 
dressed him in forcible language : " Why, you 

d d little rascal, what is the matter? Are 

you afraid to die?" 

The child replied that he was not, and de- 
termined to overcome all dread of danger by 
sea, on which resolve he had afterward abund- 
ant cause to congratulate himself. He was 
more than once sent on sea voyages by his 
\C employers, who trusted and highly esteemed 
him, teaching him early self-reliance, by the 
weight of responsibility. He had a boyish ap- 
preciation of fun, and used to enjoy telling a 
joke perpetrated on some Englishmen, who 
had come to Portsmouth to explore the sur- 
rounding lands, with a view to settlement. 
James was sent by his employers to drive with 
these gentlemen through the adjacent country 
and show its advantages. After investigating 
the condition of crops and fruits, one of the 
explorers asked about a persimmon tree, on 
which the fruit was green. In answer to his 
inquiry whether this fruit was good to eat, the 
young guide assured him of its excellence, and 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 21 

standing at a safe distance, watched his vic- 
tim as he pulled and tasted the green persim- 
mon. In another moment he was flying before 
an enraged pursuer, whose face was puckered 
and drawn by the crude fruit. Although so 
young, James understood how to protect him- 
self from insult or oppression, as was proved 
on his first sea voyage. 

There was a barbarous ordeal to which the 
young mariner was in those days exposed on 
first crossing the Line/' very similar to the 
" hazing " since practiced in colleges on fresh- 
men. To prevent this initiation, it was cus- 
tomary to pay a fee to the captain of the ves- 
sel, with which he might bribe his men to 
abstain from aggression, and young James ac- 
cordingly offered this sum to insure his protec- 
tion from the sailors. The captain refused the 
money, saying that he could not prevent the 
initiation by any means in his power; " But," 
said he, " I have two pistols here, as good 
firearms as ever smoked, and if you defend 
yourself by shooting two of the seamen, you 
may escape the ordeal. I think killing them 
would be justifiable under the circumstances." 

Young Hunter took the pistols, and his 
threats were so effective that he escaped the 
rigors of initiation without drawing any blood. 



22 A MEMOIR OF 

We have no exact record of the time spent 
witli the Portsmouth firm, during which he 
gained honor and respect, but eight years after 
the above-mentioned incidents he was living 
at Laytons, in his native County of Essex, and 
on the 2 1st of September, 1796, he married his 
cousin, Maria Garnett, the daughter of his 
great-uncle, Muscoe Garnett of Mt. Pleasant. 
This gentleman, after the death of his niece, 
Mrs. Sally Hunter, seems to have exercised 
some supervision over her orphan children, 
taking her daughter Marina, or " Patsy," as she 
was called, to live with him, but having much 
on his hands, he deputed the management of 
their property to an agent, who had little to 
show for his trust when called to render an 
account. 

James Hunter opened a store at Laytons, 
with such wreck of property as he could re- 
cover, and in spite of his extreme youth acted 
almost a father's part to his two younger 
brothers. His only sister, to whom he was 
deeply attached, always lived with him after he 
had a home of his own, and was beloved and 
honored by his family. A devoted friendship 
existed between this lady and Maria Garnett, 
with whom she had lived as a sister at Mt. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 23 

Pleasant, and whose fullest confidence she al- 
ways possessed. Muscoe Garnett was said to 
have been opposed to his daughter's marrying 
her young kinsman, who at twenty-two years 
of age had very scanty means of support, and 
the following letter written to her lover by 
Maria Garnett shows that the course of their 
true love did not run with absolute smooth- 
ness. Beneath the somewhat stilted and ro- 
mantic style of her age and generation we read 
between the lines and detect the genuine 
warmth of a first love. The epistle is dated 
July 28, 1795, and has no address, but may 
have been enclosed with the letter of some 
other person. It enters at once on the sub- 
ject of some misunderstanding: 

How could you so much misunderstand advice, 
dictated by the most anxious solicitude for your wel- 
fare, as to suppose it was meant merely as an evasion 
of a promise which I have no longer any inclination 
to perform. Hitherto I have forborne to make pro- 
fessions, because I thought from my former conduct 
you must be so sensible of the extravagance of my 
attachment that I was in danger of owing those sen- 
timents to compulsion, which I wish to be the result 
of esteem. Everything which has appeared capri- 
cious in my behaviour has originated in the singular 
character of my father; candidly speaking, I am cer- 
tain that he is as willing to my marrying you as any 



24 A MEMOIR OF 

man in the world, but he has strong objections to 
matrimony, and, from a strange peculiarity, will 
never give a positive answer to anything. Well as 1 
am acquainted with this, did not common justice de- 
mand the answer returned to you? The part I have 
had to act has been very difficult — too difficult for my 
judgment. On every side I have been entangled by 
perplexities, from which I knew not how to extricate 
myself. In this situation, I resolved to conceal every 
sensation under the mask of gaiety, and since this 
resolution, — merry, grave or sad, — have worn the 
same smiling aspect. In pursuance of these rules. 
I have sometimes so far overacted my part, that the 
affectation has been detected. I have disregarded 
my own difficulties, but have felt more severely for 
the trouble and vexation the matter has cost you 
than for any circumstance that has occurred during 
the whole transaction. Do not suppose that I have 
been so explicit in declaring my affection with a view 
of weakening the force of the request I made by your 
sister this morning. 

On the contrary, I earnestly and sincerely wish 
you to comply with it at all events. I merely mean 
the declaration for your satisfaction, if you have not 
yourself cooled, and if you have, for my own justifi- 
cation. I must now conclude by assuring you that 
your happiness has long been, and will ever remain, 
the dearest wish of my heart, and however the af- 
fair may end, if that favorite wish is granted I 
shall not be unhappy. 

M. Garnett. 

So wrote a girl of eighteen, a hundred years 
ago, and the affair ended according to the 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 25 

wishes of the young couple, as this marriage 
took place little more than a year later. For 
the first five years afterwards, they lived at 
Laytons', where James Hunter engaged in mer- 
cantile pursuits until he removed to Hunter's 
Mill, where he devoted himself to farming and 
to the care of the mill which he purchased. 
He was elected to the State Legislature, and 
served two terms, being unanimously chosen 
the second time without soliciting the vote of 
the people. He was very fond of reading, and 
his marked literary tastes impressed them- 
selves on his children. His son Robert said 
that his father slept badly, and would often call 
him up at night between one and two o'clock 
to read aloud some historical or biographical 
work. This untimely pursuit of literature 
would have acted on some childish minds as 
a deterrent rather than a stimulus, but the love 
of reading, so early inculcated, was a lifelong 
resource to the subject of this sketch. James 
Hunter said that his high value for education 
was enhanced by his own difficulties in attain- 
ing it. He owed his mental culture entirely 
to his own efforts, for he was forced into act- 
ive life too early to have had any regular edu- 
cation. He took a prominent position in his 
native countv, which was due to his force of 



26 A MEMOIR OF 

character, his clear judgment and superior 
practical ability. 

His estate prospered and he was regarded 
as a man of such integrity and business tal- 
ent that many of his neighbors sought his ad- 
vice and counsel. His views of honor were 
rigidly scrupulous, and he believed in adhering 
to a high standard of truth in word and deed. 
His affections were as warm as his temper was 
quick, and he often regretted hasty words and 
actions, prompted by passionate impulses. 
Eight children were born to him from his first 
marriage, five sons and three daughters — 
Maria, Muscoe Garnett, Martha Fenton, 
James, Jane Swann, William, Robert Mercer 
Taliaferro and another, William Garnett, 
whose birth cost the life of his mother on the 
14th of August, 181 1. The first William, a boy 
of four or five, died at the same time, and the 
infant was called by his brother's name. 

In 1819, James Hunter again married, and 
his second wife, Apphia Bushrod Rouzie, was 
also his cousin, but more distantly related than 
Maria Garnett. This lady died in February, 
1822, two weeks after the birth of her first 
child, Sarah Harriet Apphia, whom she left to 
the joint guardianship of her husband's sister 
and his daughter Jane, whose remarkable 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 2*J 

character fitted her for the charge. This latest 
born child, Sally Hunter, lived to be a comfort 
and blessing to her whole family and connec- 
tion. Of the nine children, six survived their 
father, but he lived to mourn the death of his 
eldest boy, Muscoe Garnett Hunter, the pride 
and hope of the family, who died at eighteen 
while a student at William and Mary College, 
where his popular and genial disposition had 
endeared him both to the professors and his 
fellow students. They seemed to feel a gen- 
erous pride in his early promise. The second 
son, James, also died early from typhoid fever, 
and the death of the first William has already 
been mentioned. James Hunter's first-born 
child, his daughter Maria, well endowed with 
personal and mental gifts, married her cousin, 
James Mercer Garnett, Junior, the eldest son 
of her Uncle James, to whom we have before 
referred. This young man, who died early, 
was exceptionally gifted, and some of his fel- 
low students compared him to the " Admirable 
Crichton," from his varied and brilliant facul- 
ties. The only child of this marriage was 
Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, the beloved 
nephew of R. M. T. Hunter, who regarded 
him almost as a favorite son, while his rare 
abilities and ripe scholarship gained general 



28 A MEMOIR OF 

recognition in his wide circle of acquaintances. 
Mr. Hunter often mentioned with pride the 
high encomium of a distinguished English- 
man, who, after meeting Muscoe Garnett, told 
his uncle that he had not seen his equal in 
America in literary accomplishments and va- 
ried attainments, and that he might be favor- 
ably compared with the best qualified gradu- 
ates of Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Hunter's 
other sisters were Martha Fenton and Jane S. 
Hunter, both older than himself, and the half- 
sister, Sally, who was little more than an in- 
fant when her father died in 1826. 

At this time, before he was seventeen, Rob- 
ert Hunter was left at the head of a large fam- 
ily, each with strong individual traits, although 
all united in affection for him, and in respect 
for his judgment and abilities. 

But before proceeding with the narrative of 
his life at this period, we must give some ac- 
count of Robert Hunter's childhood and its 
surroundings. 



CHAPTER II. 

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH — 1809-1827. 

Even in childhood Robert Hunter was un- 
usually grave and thoughtful, and his colored 
nurse said that he was not like other children, 
but always fond of books, and " lonesome in 
his ways." His father's love of reading, as we 
have said, fostered the boy's natural literary 
tastes, and led him to grapple with works of 
history and biography far beyond his years. 
When very young he was a martyr to ear-ache, 
by which his hearing was affected, and when 
suffering from pain, but anxious to restrain 
any expression of it, he resorted to the follow- 
ing device : He would turn his back on the 
occupants of the room, standing with his face 
toward the wall, and ask his aunt to sing a 
favorite hymn for him, " When Sorrows En- 
compass Me Round." 

Up to his eleventh year he was educated at 
home by his sisters, but at that time his father, 
and his uncle, William Garnett, together em- 
ployed a teacher, who was at liberty to take 
other scholars besides those of his two patrons. 
This gentleman lived a part of the year with 
one of his employers and a part with the 

29 



30 A MEMOIR OF 

other, but the schoolhouse was built at Rose 
Hill, a distance of about two miles and a half 
from Hunter's Hill. To this place little Robert 
walked every day, attended by a colored boy 
called Austin. 

His father gave him the choice of a riding- 
horse or the escort of this boy, and Robert 
chose the latter. Every morning the two set 
forth together, and Austin, after accompany- 
ing his charge to school, would go home and 
return for him in the afternoon. Mr. Van 
Vrancken, the first teacher engaged, was of 
German extraction, well educated, and pos- 
sessed the gift of imparting knowledge, but 
was succeeded by a teacher so unpopular that 
the boys formed more than one conspiracy to 
burn down the schoolhouse. 

These designs were fortunately not exe- 
cuted. Robert disliked the school very much, 
and owed his early education chiefly to his own 
efforts, assisted by his father and sisters. 
James Hunter, while fond of his children, was 
a disciplinarian, and on one occasion, when 
his little son had failed to arrange satisfactorily 
a business matter entrusted to him, he was 
sent back by his father on a lonely night ride 
of several miles to repair his mistake. No 
two natures could have been more dissimilar 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 3 1 

than those of this father and son, save for the 
ambition and literary tastes common to both. 

The father was a martinet in many things, in 
spite of his passionate and impulsive tempera- 
ment. He was a close business man, paying 
the utmost attention to the minutiae of his af- 
fairs, and carefully avoiding pecuniary liabili- 
ties. His papers attest his good management, 
for his receipts were kept on file, and he could 
never have been at a loss to find any import- 
ant document or note of transaction. His 
friends recognized his judicial and administra- 
tive abilities, and made him a referee in finan- 
cial difficulties, and years after his death a 
practical merchant of a later generation said 
that he believed from concurrent testimony 
that no such business man had ever lived in 
Essex. 

His son Robert inherited a financial talent 
as applied to national affairs or private settle- 
ments on a large scale, but had no love of 
technical detail. He hated accounts and had 
no innate fear of debt, for his sanguine tem- 
perament led him to hope for a way out of 
pecuniary difficulties, and he did not share 
the nervous and apprehensive tendencies of his 
father's emotional nature. His eldest sister, 
who herself possessed an excitable nature, said 



* 



2,2 A MEMOIR OF 

that Robert inherited his mother's amiability 
and unfailing patience. In early youth the fu- 
ture statesman seems to have sought compan- 
ionship with those older and presumably wiser 
than himself, but more especially did he take 
counsel with the established authorities in the 
world of letters. Always studious and ambi- 
tious, he met with few congenial companions 
before his entrance into college life, but seems 
to have been warmly attached to his uncle, 
James M. Garnett, and the family at Elmwood. 
He felt a special affection for his cousin Nancy, 
the eldest daughter, who was much older than 
himself, but possessed rare talents and accom- 
plishments, and was always devoted to her 
young cousin, whose intellect and attainments 
were to her a source of pride and pleasure and 
made them congenial companions. Elmwood 
was a second home to the Hunter family, who 
regarded this household with peculiar affection, 
and the young people treated each other with 
the love and affection of brothers and sisters. 
After their father's death, the family at Hun- 
ter's Hill was for a time broken up, for Rob- 
ert's entrance at college had already been de- 
termined. The family circle would then con- 
sist of three sisters and their young brother, 
William, and most prominent and beloved of 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 33 

all, their aunt and second mother, Martha Tal- 
iaferro Hunter. This lady, generally called 
by her nieces and nephews Aunt Patsy, had 
the gift of winning hearts by sympathy and af- 
fection; and her ready wit and bright tempera- 
ment rendered her unusually agreeable. Dur- 
ing her life she was the central figure in a fam- 
ily of remarkable gifts and traits of character. 
Friends and dependents loved and respected 
her, and the spell of her influence harmonized 
the most discordant elements. Her nieces and 
nephews not only loved her with rare devo- 
tion, but deferred to her wishes and opinions, 
and Robert Hunter, who was her chief favor- 
ite, never failed to respond to her affection and 
to consult her wishes. It was arranged that 
during his absence at college the family should 
board at Elmwood, where the eldest sister, 
Mrs. Maria Garnett, married to her cousin, al- 
ready resided. 



CHAPTER III. 

STUDENT LIFE. 

The college to which he should be sent was 
a subject of anxious discussion with Robert 
Hunter's father and friends. Princeton, Will- 
iam and Mary, and the University of Virginia, 
recently established, were all under considera- 
tion, and the decision, finally given in honor 
of the University, was a subject of much self- 
congratulation to Mr. Hunter in after life. He 
frequently expressed and proved his devotion 
to his alma mater. His father died a few 
months before the time appointed for his de- 
parture, but he entered the University at its 
first session, and was one of its first graduates, 
having for his associates Professor Gessner 
Harrison and Henry Tutwiler, his lifelong 
friends; and among his friends were others but 
little less distinguished. 

Mr. Hunter was very tenacious of friendship 
once formed, liberal in praise, and averse to 
disparagement or censure of those he really 
liked and esteemed. Professor George Long, 
formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, but 
at the time of young Hunter's matriculation 
professor of ancient languages at the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, regarded the ambitious young 

34 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 35 

student with special favor, and a copy of Po- 
lybins, presented to him by Mr. Long, and in- 
scribed with his name, is still in Mr. Hunter's 
library. 

After two or three years at college he en- 
tered the law school of the distinguished law- 
yer, Judge Henry St. George Tucker, father 
of the late Hon. John Randolph Tucker, at 
Winchester, Virginia, and while a student won 
his lasting regard. Here, too, he first saw the 
lovely niece of the great jurist, then a child of 
ten or twelve years old, who was destined to 
be his wife. 

The young law student wrote to his sister 
Maria, soon after reaching Winchester, as fol- 
lows: 

Winchester, Nov. 3d. 
My Dear Sister: [Year not given.] 

I am very much surprised to learn from your letter 
that you have not heard from me since I left home. 
I wrote shortly after my arrival, and you perhaps 
perceived from that letter, if you have yet received it, 
that I was anxious to return, but I assure you I did 
not express half the anxiety I felt on that occasion. 
I verily believe that I should have posted off in a 
week after my arrival if I had not been ashamed to 
betray my fickleness. Indeed, I find myself a very 
child in some matters, but I am at least determined 
not to display it. You will readily believe that I am 
much better reconciled to my situation when I tell 



36 A MEMOIR OF 

you that William Taylor, mon cher ami, has arrived, 
and is now playing his delightful flute by my side 
whilst I am penning this epistle. I have been so 
much interrupted for several days past that I am 
obliged to seize this, which is the best opportunity 
I have had for writing, although, as Burns says, upon 
some occasion, I am hardly up to writing an order to 
a cobbler. I have had some other inducements to 
remain besides the one I have mentioned. I have 
been circulating some among the ladies since I ar- 
rived here, and have found some of them certainly 
more than passable in appearance. You have no idea 
how these mountain girls can sing. 

I have neither seen nor heard anything of your 
friend Miss R. since my coming here, except that she 

was certainly to be married to the Reverend , 

who is said to be a young man of fine talents. I left 
your token and letter at Millwood, which is within 
half a mile of Dr. B.'s, where she lives, and an 
old gentleman who took charge of them at the office 
promised they should be safely delivered. The book 
was charged to Uncle James, as you requested, but I 
did not pay the money to Aunt B. as you wished, not 
because I forgot it, but because, like old Isaac the 
Jew, I felt that it rang too clear and true to be parted 
with. I believe, though, I should pay it now if I 
were to fall in with her, for although I thought of 
small debts all day and dreamt of debts and credits 
all night, as I came along, yet I have found not my 
courage, but my money oozing out so fast at the 
palms of my hands that I have been somewhat revo- 
lutionized. However, set it down in your big book 
until I come home at Christmas. "But how comes on 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER $J 

the law?" you will say. Much better, I daresay, than 
you suppose. I tried in in broken doses for some 
days, and it sat very well, I asure you, but it is still 
a little sedative in its influences. I believe you were 
all a little afraid when I left home that I would study 
so much here as to injure my health. I wonder what 
you would say now if you were to see me with my 
morning and evening levees, or could behold my 
valiant attacks upon our landlord's venison. You 
would readily excuse the last, if you saw the lordly 
haunches which I enjoy, for I am convinced that 
Robin Hood, had he lived to this day, would never 
have chosen his lair in merry Sherwood could he 
have wet his gray goose quill in our mountain deer. 
If we estimate greatness by the amount of pleasure 
one confers on those around him, I am sure Taylor 
(my landlord) must stand next to Washington and 
Gallatin, of all who have ever graced America. 

You seemed to be terribly in the dumps when you 
wrote. What in the world can be the matter? Are 
you still troubled with those thick-coming fancies, 
which are worse than real evils? Or is it that you 
think nothing of a more lively strain would suit my 
morbid taste? Have all the family feuds been ap- 
peased, so that you can no longer find amusement 
or occupation for your energies, or are you like 
Alexander, repining over your victories and sighing 
for another family to conquer? If any of these sur- 
mises be true, you may suppose me your opponent, 
and tell Sister Martha, when times are dull, why you 
have abundant cause to be hurt with me — " hurt," I 
believe, is the term, for not paying the aforesaid 
sum as directed, and how you mean to show me (?) 



38 A MEMOIR OF 

that you are not afraid to speak your mind on the 
occasion. And now having laid you under obliga- 
tions by affording you so charming a theme for con- 
versation, I shall draw to a conclusion, and beg to 
be affectionately remembered to them all. 
Yours affectionately, 

Robt. M. T. Hunter. 

P. S. — You must not be surprised if you should not 
hear from me again before Christmas, for if I can get 
half a chance I shall be too busy with visiting to 
think of writing anything but billet-doux, or sonnets 
" a la Moore." 

This gay, boyish effusion, addressed to his 
widowed sister, Mrs. Maria Garnett, is very 
different from the graver letters of after years, 
and is almost the only one extant of those 
written in his early youth. There is one more 
written from college, probably a year or more 
previous to the letter quoted above. 

His sister Jane seems to have censured his 
attendance at a horse race while he was at 
the University, and the young student of eigh- 
teen answers in an indignant protest, qualify- 
ing his assertion of independence, so far as his 
aunt was concerned, for to her he never failed 
in love and respect. Her letters to him were 
models of affection and discretion, and while 
holding up to him a high standard and incul- 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 39 

eating noble aims, her style and expression 
were neither didactic nor dogmatic. 

Letter to his sister Jane : 

Oct. 29th, 1827. 
My Dear Sister: 

I was a little astonished, as you may suppose, at 
the arrival of your letter and the gravity with which 
you commence the impeachment of my late conduct 
in the high court of morality. I could but wonder 
when I began your letter what I had done to call 
forth your severe animadversion, and was relieved to 
find the matter no more than the simple-looking on 
at a trial of speed between two horses of some celeb- 
rity. Now on this point I differ with you toto ccelo. 

I abhor, I believe, every species of gambling as 
much as you do, and would be the last to engage in 
it in any shape, but I cannot agree that simply view- 
ing what others bet on, is the same as betting myself. 
I acknowledge the force of example, and the duty 
which this imposes on all who love morality to 
abstain from lending its aid to immoral practices, 
but this is not a case in point. The purses had been 
made up and would have been run for, if none but 
the jockeys themselves had been present, so that my 
absence, or that indeed of all the spectators, would 
not have prevented the race, and I cannot consider 
myself as having encouraged racing by my presence. 

With regard to the by-bets and dissipation that 
sometimes attend these places, I can only say that so 
far as example goes, mine went to discourage them 
for I did not engage in anything of the sort. Indeed, 
I daresay I was only discharging a duty which 



40 A MEMOIR OF 

others neglect, for if more of those who do not en- 
gage in immoral practices were to go, their example 
would have much more effect in checking vice than 
when abstaining from appearing at them at all. If 
we were to avoid everything which involves tempta- 
tion, we should neither enjoy pleasure nor discharge 
our duties. It would be arguing quite as well to say 
that it is wrong ever to visit a tavern, because gam- 
bling is generally carried on at them, and if nobody 
went to them, there would be nobody to play. 

A certain degree of amusement is as necessary for 
our existence and the full performance of the task 
which is set for us in life, as the discharge of almost 
any other duty we have, and as some dissipation 
always attends public meetings or large assemblages 
of every sort, and from the nature of things it is 
impossible to put down these last, the most natural 
conclusion would be that the good ought to make 
the presence of the bad, which cannot be avoided, 
as little deleterious as possible. Thus it is that I 
acquit myself of all guilt in merely attending as a 
spectator; and to show that my conduct was not 
very exceptionable whilst out there, I will say, not 
in vanity, but in exculpation, that I did not bet a 
cent, drink a drop of liquor, swear an oath, or get 
into any sort of dispute whatever, and, as far as my 
efforts could go, endeavored to prevent everything 
of the sort. The last charge then is the only one 
against which I have to vindicate myself — I mean 
that of loss of time: how much of this may be law- 
fully devoted to amusement with regard to myself, I 
claim to be a better judge than you. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 4I 

My conscience acquits me of all blame in this last, 
as it does indeed in the whole matter, for I did not 
miss a lecture, and made up at night what I had lost 
in the day, to do which I had to decline an invita- 
tion to a party which I should have been gratified in 
attending. So that you see I have been able to re- 
strain my pleasure in some degree at least. 

I thought when I first opened your letter that you 
meant to accuse me of some penitentiary offense, 
but I was a little consoled even then by reflecting 
that the orthodox Miss Hannah More had proved 
that the best man in the world must necessarily vio- 
late the whole decalogue every day of his life, and 
was quite delighted to find the whole charge no 
worse than that of having walked a mile to see a 
horse run a mile. The only part of the whole matter 
that I regret is that Aunt Patsy was displeased at it, 
for it would have given me much more pleasure to 
gratify her than to have seen the race. With regard 
to yourself, it has only confirmed me in my deter- 
mination to insist positively upon your renouncing 
" Coelebs " and " The Two Wealthy Farmers/' for 
the immaculate Miss Hannah is the greatest foe to 
all sorts of pleasure, innocent as well as guilty, that 
I ever knew. Indeed, she is opposed on principle to 
pleasantness in style even, and yet that is the lady 
who could titter with Boswell behind the screen at 
Dr. Johnson's broad jokes. 

But your address to me on another subject was 
deserving, I confess, of most serious consideration. 
It awakened feelings which I had long since endeav- 
ored to lull to repose. I acknowledge and feel the 
vanity of human pursuits, yet hug my delusion, and 



42 A MEMOIR OF 

can neither describe nor account for my feelings on 
the subject. It is enough to say that there is some- 
thing too awful in the view of mortality to give me 
either pleasure or satisfaction in considering it. Al- 
though I sometimes feel as if I could face death with 
resignation and composure, I am still aware of the 
little preparation which I have made for such a 
change. The thoughts of leaving time and launching 
forth into eternity, of closing my eyes upon this 
world forever, of severing ties which can only be 
broken with the cord of existence itself, affect my 
mind with sensations which are anything but pleas- 
ing. There is a mystery about the subject baffling 
inquiry, and in this state of awful uncertainty we 
cannot but fear a change of whose nature we are 
unable to form any idea. Nay, we almost lose the 
notion of identity when we consider the separation 
to be effected between soul and body, and that while 
one exists through all eternity, the other is moulder- 
ing in silent dust. 

When you write to William, do try to dissuade 
him from his mad project of entering college after 
Christmas; it is decidedly the wildest notion I ever 
knew. 

We may mention here that this brother, 
William, the last child of James Hunter's first 
wife, who died at his birth, carried out his plan 
of entering college, and died there of typhoid 
fever on the sixth of February, 1829. His 
short life was rendered happy by a bright and 
genial nature, which won for him many friends. 
At the time of his mother's death he was taken 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 43 

by his uncle's wife, Mrs. William Garnett of 
Rose Hill, and tenderly nurtured by her. He 
was regarded by his uncle and aunt as their 
own child, and they resented his being re- 
claimed by his father upon his second mar- 
riage. Little William, returning to the pa- 
rental home when he was eight years old, be- 
came the spoiled pet of the family, endeared 
to all by his sweet and lovable nature, and in 
after years his friends told anecdotes and quot- 
ed sayings of the bright boy, whose life ended 
too early to have known any shadows. He 
did not have the grave and studious tastes of 
his brother Robert, and was more popular with 
his young companions. 



CHAPTER IV. 

POLITICS AND MARRIAGE. 

On his return from college and law school, 
Mr. Hunter purchased a forest farm, by the 
advice of friends, for Hunter's Hill was con- 
sidered unhealthy as a place of residence. The 
new house was built on an unimproved estate 
near the little village of Lloyds, about three 
miles higher up the country and further from 
the Rappahannock River than Hunter's Hill. 
Thither the family removed, and " Fonthill," 
under their management, planted and im- 
proved with best taste and care, was rapid- 
ly transformed from a barren waste to an at- 
tractive and inviting place of residence. There 
was at one time an idea prevailing among his 
friends that Mr. Hunter would do well to leave 
his native State and settle in New Orleans to 
practice law, but this was abandoned, and we 
find him in 1830 following his profession in his 
own county, but his mind and interests ever 
turned to politics. In 1835, when but twenty- 
six years of age, he was elected to the House 
of Delegates from Essex, and served during 
the sessions of 1835-36 and 1836-37. 
44 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 45 

When young Hunter entered the House of 
Delegates, Littleton Waller Tazewell was the 
Governor of the State, and the first state paper 
upon which he was called to act was the mes- 
sage of the Executive. Mr. Mieou, in his bio- 
graphical sketch of Mr. Hunter, written for 
the Richmond Dispatch, says : " Some of his 
contemporaries at that first session were 
Thomas W. Gilmer, Valentine Southall, Ed- 
mund P. Hunter, William R. Johnson (remem- 
bered as a famous turfman as well as a states- 
man), John M. Gregory, Fayette McMullin, 
John Minor Botts (who contested the seat of 
William B. Randolph, and was seated Decem- 
ber 24, 1835), Hugh A. Garland, George W. 
Summers, Vincent Witcher, and O. M. Crutch- 
field, and in 1836-37 we find in the House 
some of the above, together with Thomas H. 
Bagley, Alexander Rives, Thomas Jefferson 
Randolph, A. H. H. Stuart, William L. Gog- 
gin, Robert W. Withers, John R. Edmunds, 
Robert McCandlish, Joseph Segar, and Sam- 
uel McDowell Moore. This period is made 
memorable by the discussion and adoption of 
the Virginia resolutions in regard to the anti- 
slavery associations formed in the Northern 
States, which denied the power of Congress to 



46 A MEMOIR OF 

legislate on the subject, and by the discussions 
on the ' Expounding Resolutions/ 

" Upon the latter, Mr. Hunter made probably 
his first speech in the Virginia Legislature, 
February 26, 1836." 

It was a very memorable period in his life, 
besides its political importance, for in that first 
session he met his future wife, Miss Dan- 
dridge, the niece of Judge Tucker's wife, whom 
he had first seen as a child at her uncle's house 
in Winchester. 

She was now a lovely girl of eighteen, as he 
describes her in a letter to his sister Jane, 
written at the beginning of their acquaint- 
ance : 

She is young, handsome, intelligent, cheerful, 
agreeable and good. Do my adjectives startle you? 
They need not, for they are not extravagant, and yet 
what I have said is so little like what I want to say 
that I am tempted to throw my letter into the fire, as 
I have thrown several before. She is of good family, 
well connected, reared by a religious mother, and, I 
believe, high-souled. I find that I cannot safely be 
with her much more, unless I mean to proceed with 
the matter. 

I know that it seems ridiculous to be thus drawing 
the character of one of whom I have seen, com- 
paratively speaking, so little, and yet these impres- 
sions have fastened themselves upon me. Some- 
thing, coming from I know not where, is ever urging 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 47 

me onward, and my friend Shirley Carter says " The 
Lord sends it to us." I have a capacity for feelings 
which have never yet been developed or expressed, 
and am capable of a devotion of which, perhaps, I 
am not suspected. I have never seen the day when 
I would barter them for mere wealth, or the more 
enlarged, but equally selfish, views of ambition. I 
only ask a return; but no more on this head, or I 
shall verge upon the sentimental. 

Mary Evelina Dandridge, the youngest ^ 
daughter of Adam Stephen (or Stevens) Dan- 
dridge, of the Bower, Jefferson County, then 
in Virginia, now in West Virginia, deserved 
all the adjectives applied by her young lover. 
She was destined to be the crown and blessing 
of his life, for no man was ever more happily 
married. She was descended from Alexander 
Spottswood, or Spottiswoode (Governor of 
Virginia in Queen Anne's time), whose daugh- 
ter Dorothea married Nathaniel West Dand- 
ridge, and their son, Alexander Spottswood 
Dandridge, was the grandfather of Mrs. R. M. 
T. Hunter. 

Mr. William Spottswood Fontaine, in a let- 
ter to Mr. Hunter of August 7, 1848, says that 
his (Mr. Fontaine's) mother was a niece of 
Captain A. S. Dandridge, and told him that 
her uncle was a native of Hanover County, 
Virginia, and a captain in the Revolutionary 



48 A MEMOIR OF 

War, in which he distinguished himself. In 
May, 1795, he had been a member of the first 
Kentucky Convention. He married a daughter 
of General Stevens, and must have made his 
home in the Valley of Virginia, as his family 
continued to hold property and reside there. 
His son, Adam Stephen Dandridge, married 
Miss Sarah Pendleton, and their home was 
" The Bower," in Jefferson County. 

There is among Mr. Hunter's papers an 
order from a Colonel Alexander Spottswood, 
written in December, 1776, for regimental 
goods, to James Hunter, a merchant of Fred- 
ericksburg, Virginia, the great-uncle of Rob- 
ert Hunter. The order follows, with spelling 
and capitals copied: 
Dear Sir: 

I have at last obtained an Order of Council for the 
Goods I laid by in your store, which is to be charged 
to the Continent. I cannot conveniently send for 
them before the first of January, when I shall send 
up an officer with the Order to Receive them. You'l 
please to mark the 2nd Regt. on them, and Lay them 
on one Side, with all the White Binding you have in 
your Store, and White Mettle Buttons. 
I am yr. obt. st. (sic), 

Alexr. Spottswood. 

14th. Dec. 1776. 

This order is labeled " 1777. Col. Alexr. 
Spottswood," and was probably filled and dis- 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 49 

patched in the new year. We thus find the 
relatives of Robert Hunter and Mary E. 
Dandridge in business communication with 
each other, unconscious of the future family 
connection which the new century would 
bring. 

Mary Dandridge, or " Line," 1 as she was 
generally called by her family, was a belle 
among her cousins and acquaintances, and 
some of her admirers playfully called her the 
" Queen of the Valley," for the bright grac- 
iousness of her manners won for her as many 
hearts as the attraction of her beauty. 

Her first cousin, Philip Pendleton Cooke, 
wrote his best known and most musical verses, 
" Florence Vane," under the inspiration of her 
charms, and was an ardent suitor for her hand. 
She was also beloved by another cousin, ex- 
ceptionally gifted in mind and person, who 
captivated her girlish fancy; but her family 
objected to the young man on the score of 
dissipation, and the mutual understanding was 
broken off. 

Mary Dandridge was sent by her anxious 
mother to spend a winter in Richmond with 
the family of her uncle, Judge Tucker, and 



pronounced Lene. 



50 A MEMOIR OF 

here at little more than eighteen she met her 
future husband, R. M. T. Hunter. As soon 
as the rumor of this affair reached Mr. Hun- 
ter's family in Essex, his sister Jane, after 
writing on other subjects, noticed it as fol- 
lows: 

And now I must tell you a piece of news that I 
heard an hour or two ago, one in which both you 
and ourselves are deeply interested. Can you guess 
it? If you can, it is true. Mr. P. came up from 
Tappahannock today, and tells us he hears you are 
going to be married; he seems prodigiously inter- 
ested, and says if it is so, he thinks he must go over 
to Richmond to see the lady. Now if it is so, let me 
know in time to have a clean dress done up to meet 
her in when she comes, and again, if she is anybody, 
who is she? You know I have long wanted another 
sister, but do let her be a fine one. 

We are, as you may guess, full of conjectures on 
the subject. Mr. P. has, I believe, no doubt of its 

truth, though I can hear no grounds, but that 

heard it. 

I should have felt more excited, but that I am so 
anxious to hear you are well again that I have no 
other anxiety to spare. Why does not the legislature 
rise? I hope this first bright weather may make 
them long for a sight of their own fields again. I 
should think they would be weary of a dirty town by 
this time, and am sure I would not put myself under 
such confinement for all the honors to be won there. 
Tell them I make a motion to adjourn. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 5 1 

The writer of the above playful lines could 
not then foresee the infinite joy and comfort 
which this marriage was destined to afford, 
not only to her personally, but to the whole 
family and connection. The young bride-elect 
was to be in the early days of her married life 
the petted and beloved younger sister, and 
afterwards the valued mainstay of the family, 
to whom she brought the sunshine of her 
bright and loving nature. 

The marriage took place on the 4th of Oc- 
tober, 1836, two days after the bride's nine- 
teenth birthday, at her home, ' The Bower," in 
Jefferson County. From this union nine chil- 
dren were born, but only four survived their 
parents, as will be seen in the progress of this 
sketch. To show the high estimation in which 
Mr. Hunter was held by his family and friends, 
we subjoin extracts from some letters written 
during his terms of service in the State Legis- 
lature. His sisters were all women of intelli- 
gence and culture, but Jane S. Hunter, the 
third of these sisters, was perhaps the most 
remarkable of the family for originality of 
mind and force of character. 

She was almost entirely self-educated, but 
her thirst for knowledge led her to the attain- 
ment of a wider culture than many carefully 



1 



52 A MEMOIR OF 

trained students can claim, and her mascu- 
line disregard of the usual pursuits of her sex 
left her free to follow her natural bent. Her 
strong, clear judgment and superior facul- 
ties were crowned by a rare unselfishness and 
benevolence, which, animated by a sincere 
Christian faith, inspired her untiring efforts 
for the good of others. Her ready sympathies 
were not only enlisted by any tale of sickness 
or sorrow, but her active energies never rested 
without at least an attempt to relieve them. 

To her own family her aid and counsel were 
invaluable, and her devotion to the members 
of her home circle never induced her to lower 
for a moment the lofty standard which she 
held before them, as before herself. Her sis- 
ters, Martha and Sally, shared her high, un- 
selfish views, and co-operated with her in all 
her schemes of philanthropy. The eldest 
daughter, Mrs. Garnett, had, as we have said, 
another home, but spent much time with her 
brother. During Mr. Hunter's first legislative 
term, Jane Hunter wrote to him as follows: 

December 17th, 1835. 
My Dear Robert: 

It seems hardly worth writing, when we expect 
you so soon, but that you may not have it to say 
that you did not receive a line from me while you 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 53 

were away, I have taken my pen. We concluded 
from the Enquirer that the Assembly adjourned last 
Saturday, and we were looking for you all day Mon- 
day, but as we have heard nothing more of it since 
I suppose it is next Saturday, instead of the last, 
that they will adjourn. 

I felt more than ever anxious for you to get over 
after I heard of your having such a bad cold. I 
know change of air and a wood fire would cure it at 
once. 

I put my blessing on Richmond when I heard how 
much indisposed you had been, and should be very 
glad for the Assembly to rise the first of February, 
even though our Benjamin should go unelected, and 
indeed I think the best thing that can be done is to 
come home. This present situation reminds me very 
much of the scene in the " Critic " where they all 
stand with drawn swords without knowing what to 
do next. They tell me you are all servants of the 
people, and, if so, I am sure I don't know how you 
are to act when your masters do not know their own 
minds. 

My greatest anxiety in the matter is to see that you 
are in the House, as that shows me you are well 
enough to attend. 

I saw L. B. the other day and she told me she al- 
ways looked in the papers for your name; she said 
you had not written to Mr. Baylor, but she supposed 
from the different committees she saw your name 
on that you had not had time. 

Your friend Mr. P. was here this morning, and 
says he knows you will be very popular in the House, 
but I should think that would take more than one 



54 A MEMOIR OF 

session, and I am sure at that price I would not wish 
you to be. There is nothing new amongst us of any 
kind, except about a dozen weddings that are to 
take place in the next week. I hope we shall hear 
from you tomorrow, and then we shall know certainly 
what day to look out, and not keep the tea-kettle 
boiling, as sister Martha has been doing for you for 
some nights past. 

It is hardly worth saying that all send their love, as 
you know that is with you at home and abroad. 

They have come for my letter, so farewell until 
next week. Yours, 

J. S. Hunter. 

In a later letter of the same winter she says: 

Yours is a spirit which can never be content in the 
fetters with which the God of this world loads his 
victims, even though it may wear them. Now there 
is a truth which can make us free from all spiritual 
bondage, and this truth God has promised to reveal 
to the hearts of all who ask it. If I should ever live 
to see that day, I should think all my wishes for you 
fulfilled in that one. I have been pleased to hear 
that you have been enjoying yourself more of late. 
I think the society you have moved in this winter 
will be an improvement as well as a pleasure. 

You know even Aladdin's lamp grew rusty by long 
disuse and required a little rubbing to bring out the 
genius of bright things. I never had any objection 
to society, but to the " frolicking," as they call it, and 
for that I suppose I may trust you, after the com- 
pliment I heard paid you the other day by your old 
friend Mr. G. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 55 

Talking of the different parties, he said he put 
principle on party lines out of the way when he 
voted for you. He wanted a man without spot or 
blemish, for though he might frolic and do wrong 
himself, he did not want a member that would. 

He could have paid you no compliment that 
would have pleased me so much, and I took as much 
pains to entertain him as if he had been Mr. Leigh. 
It happened that we had several of your constitu- 
ents to see us during the last week, and they all in- 
quired after " Robert " most affectionately, Achilles 
Noel among others. From what I hear on all sides, 
I think there will be but little doubt of your election, 
and I believe you have done right to offer again, 
as far as political honor is concerned. I think that 
quite a sufficient reason, if you do not find it a kind 
of life that militates against the good of your soul, 
that is with me the paramount question. 

Your friend seems stepping into public life as 
gingerly as if he was learning to walk on the slack 
rope, but it will not do; promptitude and decision 
are everything in our collision with the world. Set 
them once to doubting our objects and wishes and 
they will never take the trouble to solve their doubts. 

There seems to have been some talk of a 
judgeship for Mr. Hunter, and the same sister 
writes in onepf her letters about this time: 

And now with regard to what has of late interested 
us so much — the judgeship. I am content that it 
should have been settled as it is, and, although I saw 
advantages in it, I was not disappointed, for I always 
calculated on obstacles arising that would prevent 
your accepting it, and I need hardly say that I would 



56 A MEMOIR OF 

not have your honor compromised even in the small- 
est degree — no, not to see you emperor of the world; 
that is, not what the world calls honor, but what you 
and I consider as such, for the definition the world 
attaches to the word is so capricious, and depends 
so entirely on the party that uses it, that it is worse 
than vain to attempt to conform to such a standard. 
I am afraid you have had a disagreeable time in the 
House, although I know your moderation will make 
it less so to you than it would' be to most others. 

I think myself that the Jackson party are very 
provoking and insulting; but, on the other side, I 
think it is a wrong spirit that is urging the Whigs 
on every occasion to broach the deadly differences 
that are separating the Union, and the prosecution 
of which must end in separation or in a complete dis- 
play of our own weakness. Yet I still think your 
party is waging a glorious warfare that will be re- 
warded in history, if it is trampled under foot now. 

It is the old story of Might against Right, and my 
faith is that the latter must be ultimately victorious, 
but if the contest has the effect of wearying you of 
public life, I shall not quarrel so much with the 
cause. I believe a nobler ambition bounds your 
horizon than what belongs to the petty strife of polit- 
ical life, afld you would be far happier to walk in 
freedom and independence of mind the path pointed 
out by your own conscience and intellectual tastes 
than in any reward that mere worldly ambition has to 
bestow. But I am content to trust your own judg- 
ment in these things, because I believe that God has 
implanted his good spirit in your heart that will 
continue its whispering until it wins you to yield 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 57 

yourself to its guidance, and then, however danger- 
ous and difficult your path may be, there will be an 
ever-brightening light within to illumine the way. I 
have, like yourself, been thinking much of the vanity 
of earthly things, and the return of this season always 
deepens these impressions. 

In her brother's absence his sister Jane at- 
tended to farming matters at home, and some 
of her reports to him, first of difficulties rep- 
resented to her by different agents, and then 
of her proposed solution of them, are models 
of clear, practical common-sense. After a 
long letter about cross-fences, crops, etc., she 
writes: 

I don't know whether I have made myself plain, 

but Mr. was imperative in requiring me to make 

the attempt, so there was no alternative. As I can 
hear no talk of that blessed legislature rising, it will 
be necessary to have something done before you get 
back, so you must bring your mind to bear on the 
subject and let me hear from you, and then I can 
manage very smartly. Is anything to be done with 
that meadow, and what do you want about the 
ploughing up here? 

Now I have finished my tiresome letter, chat I 
fear you will hardly have patience to read. 

We met the day we came down, but had only 

time for a few words. You will never have occasion 
to be your own trumpeter while he lives. Mr. P. 
says he sees his prophecies about your standing in 
the House are more than verified; that a friend says 
he was quite astonished at the progress you had 



58 A MEMOIR OF 

made, and what pleased me most was to hear it 
was with both parties. The Whig did not get to 
Lloyds on Monday, much to the disappointment 
of all your friends. For your speech, I must say I 
was satisfied with it, and you know I always value 
my own good opinion of my friends more than that 
of the world; but, seriously, I was more pleased to 
hear that you still want to come home. I trust that 
you will never value the applause of the world more 
than purer pleasures, and it is my daily prayer that 
you may not love the praise of men more than the 
praise of God. I have less fear for you, for I believe 
you have more pleasure in the consciousness of 
strength than in the honors it obtains. 

In regard to the judgeship mentioned in 
one of the above letters, we will insert two 
other letters or extracts from them, the first 
from his Aunt Patsy, loved and honored by 
him as a mother, and the second from his sis- 
ter, M. F. Hunter. 

His aunt's letter is dated December 19, but 
no year is given. It evidently belongs to the 
close of 1835: 

Your letter, which I may say I had longed to re- 
ceive, came, and with it brought a blight to my 
fondest and most tenderly cherished hope, and I 
was weak enough to suffer a tear to rise, but I strove 
to conceal my disappointment, and, as is now my 
rule, made no expose of my feelings. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 59 

As you were governed by the light of conscience 
and a sense of honor, I have nothing to be dissatis- 
fied at, but should rather rejoice,— alas the flesh is 
weak. Now you must not think that pride or ambi- 
tious motives swayed or ruled my feelings in this my 
ardent desire, which I allowed myself to hope would 
be realized. No, I trust a motive entirely pure and 
free from everything selfish was predominant, for I 
thought the appointment here alluded to would suit 
your taste, allow you some repose, and, as the Irish 
woman says in the story, " allow you to make up 
your soul," and I felt no doubt of your filling this or 
any other station honorably. 

So I will not intrude my feelings on you any 
longer, but end by saying that while I am sorry, 
deeply sorry, to find I can hope no longer, I am 
proud in believing that you were actuated by the 
purest motives, and may God ever guide you in the 
path of virtue and truth. My heart is bound to your 
honor. I do not know why you complain of receiv- 
ing no letters; both Martha and Jane have written, 
and the measles have left without further notice. Ere 
this, I expect Maria has written, but in case she has 
not I will tell you that the Elmwood family are all 
well, and we have reason to hope that Muscoe's 
teacher will turn out to be well fitted to instruct his 
pupils. 

Our neighborhood news is so poor and meagre 
that I will not attempt to tell it to you, save that 
your cousin, E. R., on the morning of Tuesday will 
be a bride, and will bid farewell to her home imme- 
diately after the ceremony, arrayed in cloak and 
bonnet of royal purple, but as you are no lady, I 



6o A MEMOIR OF 

cannot give you more of these details, so much the 
subject of small talk with us. You men cannot ap- 
preciate them. 

Your old friend is, I believe, as attentive to your 
concerns as if almost they were his own, and Jane is 
very busy planning, and executing, too, her garden- 
ing preparations. 

Martha wishes to speak for herself, so I will bid 
you farewell, hoping we shall meet another Xmas. 

Fifty-eight have I numbered, and my old asso- 
ciates and friends, with whom I commenced life, and 
who at this season were wont to meet each other 
with kind and cheerful greetings, have nearly all de- 
parted. 

The season brings to me most painful remi- 
niscences, but I promised to conclude, and so I will. 
Affect'ly yrs., 

M. T. H. 
From his sister Martha: 
My Dear Robert: 

I was surprised and sorry to find you had not 
received any letters from home since you left it, as I 
should always wish, as far as any effort of mine was 
concerned, to ward off every care or consciousness 
that could possibly arise to disturb your mind. 

I have thought so much of the judgeship that I 
have not liked to say anything about it to you, as I 
know by experience there are doubtful conjunctures 
in life when suggestions, advice, and even expres- 
sions of feeling are tormenting from our friends, 
and the more so, even from our confidence in their 
affection, as we feel that any step we take which 
concerns us materially must affect them also. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 6 1 

But, as I suppose the matter is by this time de- 
cided, I must say, what I hope you were before as- 
sured of, that I would not for the world have had 
you to balance between any motives of personal in- 
terest and considerations of honor; indeed, I was 
so certain that nothing would induce you to do so, 
that I felt almost what the result would be. 

Not that on the face of things I perceive any con- 
tradiction between honor and interest in the affair, 
but I know only those who are spectators and parties 
in these matters are proper judges. Honor at the 
best is of a very vague, delicate and undefined na- 
ture, as Falstaff has long ago proved, and political 
honor is the most undefined species of it; but unsub- 
stantial as it is, much more to be prized than any- 
thing else. 

The Whigs may be a falling party now, but I can- 
not help thinking the time will come, and that per- 
haps not very distant, when our country will look 
back with pride and admiration on their gallant, 
disinterested efforts. 

Should that time never come, there are walks of 
life happier far, I believe, than anything which po- 
litical life can offer, so that there are advantages as 
well as disadvantages in looking on both sides of a 
question. I am very glad to hear that you keep well. 
Yours most truly, 

M. T. Hunter. 

The same sister in writing an anxious epis- 
tle to her brother about a long, cold ride to> 
Richmond, not long after his marriage, says:. 



62 A MEMOIR OF 

It made me sorry that you had ever come over at 
all, as I would greatly rather have suffered pecuniary 
loss and inconvenience than for you to have taken 
such a trip on our account, as things have turned 
out, and I regret the more because I know how will- 
ing you are, and always have been, to do anything 
for us you could, without regarding any personal 
consideration. 

The ink is so frozen I fear you can scarcely de- 
cipher this. Tell Line [her sister-in-law] she must 
write as soon as you receive this, if only two or 
three lines, to let us hear from you. Jane says I 
must tell you she is in a thousand fidgets about you, 
and Aunt P. says she has felt as if she had a mill- 
stone about her neck ever since you went away. 

Our best love to Line. I trust you are by this 
time safely by her side. May God bless you. 
Yours ever, 

M. T. Hunter. 

These letters and extracts serve to show the 
pride and affection with which the young pol- 
itician was regarded in his own family, and 
with one or two written to the young wife, by 
a member of her new home circle, we will 
close the chapter and his term of service in 
the Virginia Legislature. 

The young nephew of R. M. T. Hunter, 
whose after career so fully realized his early 
promise, was at this time a youth in his six- 
teenth year, and writes to his new sister, as 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 63 

he called his uncle's wife, who was only a 
few years older than himself, from his home 
at Elmwood: 

January 13th, 1837. 

I am sorry that it has not been in my power to 
write before. I have been so busy lately that I have 
had but little time. 

Indeed, my hands are still full, so full that I should 
defer my letter still longer did I not know that if 
possible I will be still more occupied for the next 
few weeks than before. Accordingly, I seize the 
present time, fearing that a delay might prevent my 
writing at all. 

I speak quite as a man of business, don't I? I 
talk of my business as much as any public character 
could do of his, yet I do not exaggerate, for I have 
to study very hard. 

Whenever I go to Fonthill now I miss you sadly; 
indeed, now you have once been there, I don't know 
how we ever did without you. I missed your sing- 
ing greatly, but yourself more. 

I was disappointed at not seeing you at Xmas, 
though I can't say that I expected you. You sent 
me word by Uncle Robert that your next letter 
should be to me, and J hold you bound to keep your 
promise. I am anxious to receive a letter from you, 
and have carefully perused all your Essex letters. 

I hardly think that mother and I will see you in 
Richmond this winter. Grandma is so unwell that we 
would not like to leave her, but if she gets much 
better I entertain a faint hope of seeing you towards 
the end of February. 



64 A MEMOIR OF 

All the Fonthill family came up yesterday evening 
on a visit of two or three weeks, and I was delighted 
to see them. I must leave room for the song. You 
remember you promised to introduce it this winter, 
if you have to go to a party solely for that purpose, 
yet you must do it. I am quite anxious to hear of 
" the new song introduced by Mrs. Hunter of Essex, 
at Mr. 's party." 

When did you last hear from Mrs. Dandridge? I 
shall like to hear how she and all your other friends 
and relatives are. I was glad to hear that your 
brother Philip had determined to join Uncle Charles. 
I hope they will find mutual pleasure and advantage 
in their acquaintance. Now for the song. It is by 
Dietmar von Aste, a Minnesinger: 

" There sate upon the linden tree 

A bird, and sang its strain; 
So sweet it sang, that as I heard 

My heart went back again. 
It went to one remembered spot, 

It saw the rose-trees grow, 
And thought again the thoughts of love 

There cherished long ago. 

" A thousand years to me it seems 

Since by my fair I sate ; 
Yet thus to be a stranger long 

Is not my choice, but fate: 
Since then I have not seen the flowers 

Nor heard the bird's sweet song; 
My joys have all too briefly passed, 

My griefs been all too long." 

It would take me a week and a day to tell all the 
messages about your headaches, and to give all the 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 65 

love sent you by me, and all the Fonthill and Elm- 
wood families. My best love to Uncle Robert. 
Yours very sincerely, 

Muscoe R. H. Garnett. 

We anticipate a little in here inserting a let- 
ter from the same young scribe, written while 
at the University of Virginia, to Mrs. Hunter, 
after her husband's election to the House of 
Representatives: 

December 7th, 1838. 
My Dear Sister: 

Happy as I know you are in being at your old 
home, I am still selfish enough to feel a sort of regret 
every time I think of it. I am not bad enough abso- 
lutely to wish you back in Essex, but then I cannot 
tell you how much I shall miss you at Xmas. I had 
promised myself so much pleasure in meeting you, 
and I had looked forward to such a happy reunion of 
all that it is a great disappointment to find that one 
seat in our circle will be vacant. And then I shall 
hear none of your songs; you had promised to sing 
all my favorites. The idea of not seeing you until 
July is bad, indeed; only three months have passed, 
and yet it seems as many years since I was at Font- 
hill, and I suppose at that rate the next seven months 
will be an awfully long period. However, every time 
I wish you at home I feel my conscience condemn 
me. 

I know how much you are enjoying yourself at 
" The Bower," and how wrong it is to wish you 
back, merely on personal motives. 



66 A MEMOIR OF 

Mother wrote me she saw you and Uncle Robert 
at Elmwood the evening of her return. You may 
imagine how much pleasure her visit gave me. I 
don't think words ever sounded half so sweet to me 
as when some one told me that my "Ma wanted me." 

The only drawback to my pleasure was the short- 
ness of her time. She stayed only two days — very 
happy, but very short, days. I suppose she gave you 

an account of 's courtship. He was very open, 

and talked over the whole affair with me, and told me 
all the particulars, some of which were very laugh- 
able, but hardly more so than his manner in telling 
them. I received letters from home yesterday, dated 
last Monday. 

I hear that the President's message again recom- 
mends the sub-Treasury, so I suppose there will be 
another warm debate on it in Congress, and that 
Uncle Robert will join in it again. 

How I should like to be there to hear him! You 
remember the evening he expected to speak, and 
we were to have gone up together, and you wished 
to get behind a pillar so that he might not discover 
you listening? I look back very often with the great- 
est pleasure to the short time I spent in Washington 
last spring. 

I had not seen Uncle Robert and yourself for so 
long a time, and everything seemed so new to me, 
that I enjoyed myself highly. 



CHAPTER V. 

PUBLIC LIFE. 

Mr. Hunter was elected to the House of 
Representatives in 1837, where he served con- 
tinuously until 1847, w *th the exception of 
one term, when he was defeated by a small 
majority by the Hon. Willoughby Newton of 
Westmoreland County. 

" During the sessions of 1839, I &4° an ^ 
1 841 he was Speaker of the House, and his 
rulings made during that period are still re- 
garded as of high authority on questions of 
parliamentary law. In that body he advo- 
cated the annexation of Texas, the compro- 
mise of the Oregon question, the retrocession 
of Alexandria to Virginia, and supported the 
Walker tariff of 1846. In December, 1847, 
he was elected by the General Assembly to the 
United States Senate, and soon took a lead- 
ing position in that body among such distin- 
guished statesmen x as Calhoun, Clay, Webster, 
Cass, Benton, and others of less note, and at 
a later period he, with Davis of Mississippi, 
and Toombs of Georgia, constituted what was 
known as the Southern Triumvirate. 



68 A MEMOIR OF 

" Early in his Congressional career he 
adopted in the main the States' Rights and 
low tariff views of Mr. Calhoun, and waa 
among the ablest disciples and supporters of 
that eminent statesman. 

" He voted for the Clayton compromise, 
and the extension of the line 36 degrees 30 
minutes, established by the Missouri Compro- 
mise of 1820, to the Pacific. 

"As chairman of the Committee on Finance in 
the Senate, he made an able and exhaustive re- 
port on the coinage of the country, and recom- 
mended and secured a reduction of the quantity 
of silver in the smaller coins, which checked 
their exportation to foreign countries. He was 
the author of the tariff of 1857, which effected 
a considerable reduction in duties and en- 
larged the free list. He originated the 
bonded-warehouse system, under which im- 
ported goods were allowed to remain in Gov- 
ernment warehouses until the owners desired 
to put them upon the market, the duty be- 
ing paid at the time of withdrawal, a system 
which was a great convenience to merchants, 
and entailed no loss on the Government, and 
which is still continued. 

" He advocated the admission of Kansas un- 
der the LeCompton Constitution, and in i860 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 69 

made an elaborate speech in the Senate in 
defense of slavery and the right of a slave- 
holder to carry his property into the Terri- 
tories. He was a prominent candidate for the 
Presidency in that year, having secured the 
Virginia delegation over ex-Governor Henry 
A. Wise, which fact attests his great popular- 
ity in the State, as the delegates were elected 
•by conventions held in each Congressional dis- 
trict. 

" He was the orator of the day on the 22d 
of February, 1858, when Crawford's eques- 
trian statue of Washington, which stands on 
the Capitol Square, was unveiled. His ad- 
dress, delivered in the City of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, in the campaign of 1852, in which he 
traced the growth and history of parties, and 
demonstrated the soundness of the States' 
Rights view of the nature of the Federal com- 
pact, is one of the ablest popular disquisitions 
on that subject, and the address in the African 
Church in the memorable Know-Nothing cam- 
paign of 1855, on tne dangers to be appre- 
hended from secret political parties, is still re- 
ferred to by those who heard it as a master- 
piece of eloquence, oratory, and overwhelm- 
ing logic." 1 

Wide sketch of R. M. T. Hunter written for the 
Richmond Dispatch, December 13, 189 1, by A. R. 
Micou. 



~> 



70 A MEMOIR OF 

In December, 1839, Mr. Cralle wrote from 
Lynchburg, Virginia, to Mr. Calhoun, apro- 
pos of Mr. Hunter's election as Speaker: 

I do not know exactly the state of parties in the 
House. The election of Hunter adds to the mystery, 
when I look at the votes for Lewis. But this is a 
mere episode in the play. 

I trust that Hunter will fulfil the expectations of 
his true friends; will vindicate his character for up- 
rightness and independence; and look steadily to the 
advancement of those principles with which the 
names of his ancestors, the character of his State, arid 
his own are so fully identified. 

He has but to adhere to the strict parliamentary 
rule in the appointment of committees, etc., to place 
his reputation on a firm basis. I much esteem him, 
and sincerely hope he will do this. If he sides with 
the Federalists, he is lost beyond redemption. I was 
never more confident of any result than that of the 
election in Virginia. The Whigs will be routed, 
" horse, foot and dragoons." 

There is no possible chance for their success. 
Harrison will fall far below the standard of Clay in 
the State. 

Upon this you may rely with the utmost con- 
fidence. 

A letter from Mr. Calhoun, written in the 
same year, but a few months previous to the 
above, says: 






ROBERT M. T. HUNTER ?I 

Fonthill, June, 1839. 
My Dear Sir: 

I write to say to you how much I am gratified 
with the success of your election. The struggle in 
Virginia seemed to be to destroy all who would not 
range themselves under the flag of the Administra- 
tion or opposition, as mere partisans, and that you 
should have sufficient strength of yourself to main- 
tain your position between the contending parties is 
a source of joy to your friends in this State, and to 
none more than myself. 

What is the true result of your election, and what 
is the future prospect of Virginia? Is she destined 
to be bound by the mere trammels of party, or is 
there a prospect that she will ever assume independ- 
ent ground on her former principles? 

What course did the two parties take in reference 
to yourself? Who brought out your old opponent, 
and on what ground did he place his election? Our 
State is profoundly quiet. 

Public sentiment approaches to something like 
unanimity on all the great questions of the day, and 
our people seem determined to hold the presidential 
election strictly subordinate to their principles. We 
begin to turn our x attention to the readjustment of 
the tariff under the compromise act. 

My mind is made up that it ought not to be de- 
layed beyond the next session, and that we ought to 
go for a uniform ad val. duty on all articles, without 
any discrimination, and such, I think, will be the 
unanimous voice of the State. 

It is our only safe position, and if we can get the 
South to unite on it, its success is certain. 



J2 A MEMOIR OF 

It would give us a security that we have never 
heretofore had under the government. I intend to 
direct a good deal of my attention to the subject be- 
fore the meeting of Congress, and will probably 
make an early move on it. This, however, I write 
to you as a friend, and for your private ear, as it per- 
haps would not be advisable that what I contemplate 
should be known, but I hope, if you concur with 
me, that you will take such steps by correspondence 
and otherwise, as may prepare our friends for the 
movement in your State. 

Do let me hear from you at your early convenience, 
and favor me with your views on that and all other 
points that you may deem worthy of attention. 

What would be the effect in Virginia if Clay should 
not be nominated by the Whig Convention? 

With my kind respects to Mrs. H., I am with great 
respect, Yours truly, 

J. C. Calhoun. 

Hon. R. M. T. Hunter. 

Among the notable speeches of Mr. Hun- 
ter's long ante-bellum political career were the 
following: 

On the bill to establish an independent 
treasury, delivered in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, June 22, 1838; a previous one in 
the House, on the bill imposing additional du- 
ties as depositories, in certain cases, on public 
officers. This was delivered in October, 1837. 
Speech on the Oregon Territory bill, delivered 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 73 

in the Senate of the United States, July n, 
1848. Speech in the United States Senate, 
July 18, 1850, on the admission of California 
into the Union, the establishment of Terri- 
torial Governments for Utah and New Mex- 
ico, and making proposals to Texas for the 
settlement of her northern and western boun- 
daries. Speech on the French Spoliation Bill, 
delivered in the United States Senate, Janu- 
ary 20, 185 1. Speech in the Senate of the Uni- 
ted States, February 17, 1852, on the bill 
granting land to the State of Iowa in aid of 
constructing certain railroads. Speech in the 
Senate, May 5, 1852, against increasing the 
appropriation for the Collins Line of steam- 
ers. Speech on governmental expenditures, 
in reply to Hon. James A. Pearce, of Mary- 
land, delivered in the United States Senate, 
May 31, 1852. Speech on bill to amend the 
acts to regulate the appraisement of imported 
merchandise in the United States Senate, Feb- 
ruary 4, 185 1. " Address before the Demo- 
cratic Association of Richmond, October 1, 
1852. Speech on a railroad to the Pacific, de- 
livered in the Senate, February 19, 1853. 
Speech in the United States Senate, February 
24, 1854, on Nebraska and Kansas, and a dis- 
course before the Virginia Historical Society, 



74 A MEMOIR OF 

December 14, 1854. Address before a Demo- 
cratic mass-meeting at Poughkeepsie, Octo- 
ber 1, 1856, on the occasion of a Democratic 
demonstration, which he was invited to at- 
tend. His oration of February 22, 1858, de- 
livered at Richmond, Virginia, when the 
equestrian statue of Washington was inaugu- 
rated, has 'been already mentioned in quoting 
from Mr. Micou's sketch, and the compli- 
ments to this and many other speeches and 
addresses delivered at various times by Mr. 
Hunter are too numerous to give in a brief 
memorial like this. 

The future writer of a more extended bi- 
ography may hereafter collect and publish 
these notices, printed and private. 

Among them is a complimentary letter from 
Hon. Chas. J. Faulkner, written at the time of 
Mr. Hunter's Poughkeepsie speech: 

National Democratic Committee Rooms, 

Washington, October 6, 1856. 

Hon. R. M. T. Hunter: 

Dear Sir — I should do injustice to my own feel- 
ings if I did not avail myself of the earliest moment 
to express to you the very high gratification which 
I have just derived from the perusal of your able, 
eloquent and statesmanlike speech at the Pough- 
keepsie meeting. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 75 

It is the source to me of no little pride that to 
the National Democratic Committee, over which I 
have the honor to preside, is the country indebted 
for the preliminary movement, at least, which led 
to the appeal to you, and which has resulted in this 
noble vindication of the endangered interests of the 
Union. I am free to confess that for some years 
past there has not existed upon my part in refer- 
ence to yourself any very warm and cordial senti- 
ment of political friendship. 

I need not go into any explanation of the cause. 
It is true there is no moment in which I would 
have done you injustice, or by any act of mine 
have sought to impair your just hold upon the 
confidence of your State and country. 

But the closing months of the last session of 
Congress have produced in me feelings of a very 
different character, which I have freely from time 
to time communicated to our mutual friend, Mr. 
Bocock. And I avail myself therefore of this 
occasion to say that your eminent qualities as a 
statesman ever faithful to your trust and devoted 
to the best interests of your country will cause me 
to look with unmingled satisfaction upon your fu- 
ture advancement to any position of honor or public 
service to which the admiration and gratitude of 
your fellow citizens may elevate you. 
I am truly yours, 

Charles James Faulkner. 
It would not be too much to say that Mr. 
Hunter possessed the esteem and confidence 
of all who knew him, even when, as in Mr. 



j6 A MEMOIR OF 

Faulkner's case, they were not in full politi- 
cal accord with him. He was always consid- 
ered safe and trustworthy, and his counsel was 
sought and valued. In proof of this assertion 
we will give later on some of his letters from 
public men. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PRIVATE LIFE AND LETTERS. 

While actively engaged in politics, Mr. 
Hunter's large and growing family involved 
him in many expenses besides those incidental 
to public life, and even at the beginning of 
the Civil War his financial difficulties were 
very serious. 

His letters, written and received, show rap- 
idly increasing pecuniary embarrassment, and -i. 
his friends would often jestingly tell him that 
the financial abilities so successfully exerted 
in public interests were sadly needed at home. 

Naturally sanguine, and by temperament op- 
posed to economic details, Mr. Hunter was 
too prone to engage in speculative enterprises, 
and would lavish any funds at his disposal on 
his mill, a favorite hobby with him. 

Hospitable almost to excess, and encour- 
aged in this 'by his genial and generous- 
hearted wife, they kept open house as long as 
circumstances rendered it possible, and so 
paramount was the duty of hospitality consid- 
ered in the Fonthill household, that no mem- 
ber of the family expressed open dissent or 
opposition to its freest exercise. It would be 

77 



78 A MEMOIR OF 

a mistake to suppose that Mr. Hunter was 
solely devoted to political pursuits and inter- 
ests to the exclusion of domestic affections. 

Grave and reserved in temperament, with a 
soul attuned to high thoughts and aspirations, 
he was neither addicted nor adapted to " light 
chat " or gossiping intercourse, 'but his affec- 
tions were strong and tenacious. Several fam- 
ily and friendly letters are given in these pages 
with a view to showing the deep affection, 
apart from admiration, which many of his 
friends and kindred felt for the Virginia states- 
man throughout his career. 

His nature was single and truthful, not in- 
clined to doubt or suspicion, and his regard 
and friendship, once given, were not easily 
or lightly withdrawn. 

His disposition was gentle, his judgment 

^N^ cool and reliable, and his power of self-control 

remarkable until late in life, when trouble and 

disease affected a temper naturally calm and 

equable, and rendered him more irritable. 

His usual manner was quietly courteous 
and rarely excited, but a political friend told 
the writer that when speaking, after the first 
introductory remarks, his eyes sparkled and 
his voice deepened in violence and compass, 
while the animation produced by his interest 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 79 

in his subject imparted a charm to his whole 
manner and bearing. He was considered an 
exceptionally good electioneerer in earlier life, 
and always took a marked interest in young 
men, evincing an unfailing anxiety to assist 
them in their chosen career. This feeling of 
interest and sympathy with the young and am- 
bitious was deepened and intensified in the 
case of his nephew, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, 
to whom his attachment was constant, and 
proved by every means in his power. 

The two letters subjoined speak for them- 
selves: 

[Undated.] 
My Dear Sister: 

I have just read your letter to Line, and hot as it 
is, I will write tonight, whilst things are fresh in 
my mind. I am very much concerned to find you 
writing in so gloomy a strain. Rely upon it, and I 
am speaking from much experience, that the human 
mind soon borrows its complexion from what it 
feeds upon. These gloomy reflections are good 
neither for the soul nor body. It is the fault of us 
both that we are too apt to take up disgusts at the 
necessary incidents and occurrences of human life 
and try to persuade ourselves that there is nothing 
worth striving for in order to excuse our listlessness 
and apathy. This very disposition has spoiled me, 
and I am ashamed of it now that some of my best 
years have been wasted in the indulgence of my 



80 A MEMOIR OF 

morbid appetite for sad thoughts and in the culti- 
vation of a thousand fastidious scruples that almost 
unfit us for any useful purpose in life. 

Listen to me, for I am speaking as truly on this 
subject as if I were inspired. Why should you be 
looking out for green spots as a resting place when 
the body can no longer be useful to the soul, and 
when there are so many barren spots that might be 
made green? This disposition reacts upon your 
son and will destroy that elasticity of spirit so neces- 
sary to give vigor and energy to youth. 

The world — the teeming world — is before him, 
and you too, old as you may think yourself. A 
thousand useful pursuits are open to you both, and 
whatever employment is useful will turn out to be 
agreeable. You ought to give him the spur of hope 
and encourage cheerfulness of spirits. 

How can he have these if, in his constant associa- 
tion with you, he sees you gloomy and depressed? 

The solitary life which he leads and the scenes 
through which he has lately passed have been un- 
favorable to his spirits, and in that respect they are 
likely to impair his energy of character. It was 
partly for this reason that I wished him to stay 
longer at this place. I wanted him to see the bustle 
and stir of life, to catch the spirit of enterprise and 
of youthful hope, which will be necessary to bear 
him successfully through life. 

Colonel Pickens wished me to carry him down to 
see Mr. Calhoun, and I regret that he did not re- 
main longer so that I might have done it. I was 
glad, however, that he went down so soon when I 
found out how much you were disturbed at his 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 8l 

absence, but this is a womanly weakness, and you 
must get over it. 

Not upon the idea of doing penance and of wean- 
ing yourself from an idol. This mode of viewing 
our duties as sacrifices will never do. It is incom- 
patible with the love and reverence which we should 
feel to Him who prescribed these duties. 

Neither do I object to a little wholesome medita- 
tion now and then -upon "the shadows we are and 
the shadows we pursue." I have much sympathy, 
too, for the Jacques view of moralizing occasion- 
ally. But Mirza, I think, reserved only one day in 
the year for the first occupation, and I cannot con- 
sent that you should bury yourself in the stable 
woods, in imitation of the latter (Jacques). 

I am content that once even in a month you 
should perform your ablutions earlier in the morn- 
ing, and see during that day all the visions of Mirza, 
if you will; but when that day is over return to 
some useful and refreshing employment. 

The garden and yard will give you exercise, and 
how many delightful pursuits invite you to mental 
occupation. Drink little tea, read no more novels, 
and betake yourself to some course of study which 
will give you regular and serious occupation for a 
portion of your leisure hours. 

Do not laugh at this. You will find pleasure and 
health both to soul and body in some course of 
study (provided it be not a course of Calvinistic 
divinity, but one which will task your mental ener- 
gies and employ your reason more and your imag- 
ination less). Above all things, do not torment 



82 A MEMOIR OF 

yourself by imagining future ills and by expecting 
all the possible mishaps which may befall Muscoe 
and yourself. 

*' f Take no thought for the morrow" is a maxim 
which the Christian ought to understand. Discharge 
your duties today and put your faith in God to rule 
your future destiny and the events of tomorrow 
more wisely and happily than you could yourself if 
they were under your own control. 

When you send your son into the world you must 
expect that he will meet with his share of mishaps — 
nay, it is best that he should have his trials, and you 
must suppose that he will have his portion. There 
is also another matter which I wish you could com- 
prehend, but few women can. 

It is this: He will undoubtedly err sometimes, 
and while at all times you ought to inculcate the 
right, yet there are occasions when it is wise to seem 
blind, because in some matters interposition from 
another wounds more than it corrects. 

There are some minds to which it is enough to 
expose the fault — the more gently the better — and 
trust to their natural good sense and sound princi- 
ples to correct it. 

Muscoe's is one of these. Of course, I cannot 
specify all the errors to which I would have you 
seem blind, but I will illustrate my meaning a little. 
Muscoe did right to stay a day longer. I gave the 
advice and took the responsibility. 

But suppose that he had been here alone and had 
thought it best to stay a single day beyond his time 
upon his own responsibility. You ought then to 
have considered first whether the inducement was 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 83 

such as to have warranted him in disappointing 
you; and, if so, you should have been entirely silent. 
If, on the other hand, you thought it not enough, it 
would have been quite sufficient to have expressed 
to him your disappointment at not seeing him by 
the appointed time. 

He will naturally strive to take the man more 
upon himself as he advances in years, and my fear 
is that you will check this disposition too much. 

You must now rule him by love and be reasonable 
in your requirements of him if you wish to give a 
manly tone to his character. You have instilled 
good principles into him; continue to inculcate them 
with a mother's gentleness and love, and trust the 
rest to God, not with a faint and doubtful heart, but 
with your whole soul. 

Do this, my dear sister, and God will regard your 
prayers and your pains. He is a noble boy; let him 
go to college alone and take his chances like other 
boys. 

He will meet with no trials beyond his strength. 

Impress upon him the fixed belief that your first 
wish is to see him return with the virtues, the 
manly qualities and the gentlemanly accomplish- 
ments which are man's best endowments. When 
he leaves you make him promise two things: First, 
to read a chapter in the Bible every day, either in 
the morning or at night; and, secondly, whenever he 
finds himself about to act, out of mere regard for 
public opinion (which sometimes it is right to do), 
to ask himself before he acts what you would think 
of the matter if you knew it. 



84 A MEMOIR OF 

These rules may seem to him to be small matters, 
but he will find both practices useful when he goes 
to college. 

If you take my advice in this, I think you will 
never regret it. When the human mind reaches a 
certain stage it must be left free to act for the most 
part upon its own principles and not upon those of 
others, or else it will take a retrograde movement. 
I know of no situation in which the experiment of 
free agency can be so safely made as in the employ- 
ments and under the restraints of college life. 

If you could control him entirely for the three 
years which he may spend at college, he would 
enter the world as raw and inexperienced, to all 
practical purposes, as he is now. And he would 
then encounter ten times as many difficulties and 
temptations as he could be exposed to at college. 

I fear that this will be unpalatable to you, but I 
ought to speak candidly to you. 

Muscoe is almost as much to me as he is to you, 
and I wish him to make his first essay in life under 
what I believe to be the best circumstances. I 
regret to hear that you have been indisposed, but I 
have no doubt that an ounce or two of cheerfulness 
would do you more good than all the physic in the 
apothecary's shop. And why should you not ad- 
minister this to yourself? Think of your son and 
the bright prospects which are before him. Imagine 
yourself in the Senate gallery whilst he stands forth 
the proudest and the strongest champion upon some 
great question which divides the public of his day; 
or follow him, if you prefer it, to the bar of the 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 85 

Supreme Court, and watch the approving counte- 
nances of the judges as they mark his skill in thread- 
ing the mazy labyrinths of the law. 

I do not know when I shall see old Essex again. 
My heart, however, is with you, and I am anxious 
to get away. 

Give my love to all, and may God bless you. 
Yrs. affect'ly, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

Line does not know that I am writing. She is 
quite well and will advise you herself when she will 
return. 

I am not sure that I shall not write you a quire 
tomorrow. This is by far the wisest letter I ever 
wrote in my life. 

The next letter was written to his nephew, 
M. R. H. Garnett, while at college, and shows 
the affectionate and paternal interest felt by 
Mr. Hunter for this favorite relative. 

It is undated, but was probably written in 
1840 or 1 841 : 
Dear Muscoe: 

I was selfish enough to have / been a great deal 
concerned at missing you upon my return; but it 
was doubtless better that you should have gone 
when you did, as your class was in advance of you. 
I hope you are pleasantly situated and that your 
studies are agreeable to you. 

There is nothing like entering into 1 profession 
"con amore." A mere sense of duty may make us 
labor enough to do pretty well, but there must be a 
certain degree of real interest in every pursuit to 
lead to eminence. 



86 A MEMOIR OF 

The law, I think, is generally undervalued by 
students at the commencement — I mean by those 
of liberal attainments and enlarged views, who, like 
Blackstone, are loath to bid farewell to their muse. 
Not that this parting is absolutely necessary, for, 
although the law is reputed to be "a jealous mis- 
tress," yet I think that a lawyer in this country is 
by no means required, or even justified, in giving 
up general literature. Like the Roman Advocate, 
he may have leisure for other things. For we have 
disused so much of the technicality of the English 
pleadings and have pruned away so many of their 
refinements that the science in this country may be 
said to rest (as I think) more upon general prin- 
ciples than it did or now does in England. It will, 
I think, be one of your pleasures, as you progress 
in the study, to find these principles of natural 
justice and law of more general application than 
perhaps you now suppose them. 

By the way, I was glad to hear that you designed 
to commence, or continue (which is it?), the study 
of Anglo-Saxon. 

I very much regret that I did not study both that 
and the German when I had leisure for such things. 
The first I believe to be very essential to an accurate 
English style. 

Your style may be beautiful and polished without 
it — for such instances we have — and a knowledge 
of the true force of words, so essential to accuracy, 
may be acquired perhaps by other means, but cer- 
tainly this study must conduce to that knowledge 
in a very great degree. I suppose, of course, you 
will combine historical reading as far as practicable 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 87 

with your legal studies. I do not know the book, 
but from what I have heard of it I should think that 
Henry's History of England, particularly the reigns 
of the Edwards, indeed as far down as Henry the 
Eighth, would be useful and perhaps agreeable. 

But you will be better able- to judge of it when 
you turn over some of the chapters. If you have 
leisure, you ought to read "Thierry's History of the 
Norman Conquest," and you must make leisure to 
read "Vertot's Roman Revolutions." 

This last I have not read; but lately, although not 
a new book, I hear it much and well spoken of. I 
mean to read it myself if I have leisure, but domes- 
tic pursuits and public disquietudes divert my atten- 
tion much from matters which are more agreeable. 
My political enemies are, I believe, exceedingly 
bitter and will annoy me as much as they can. It is 
a poor life, after all, which renders us dependent 
upon others for positions and respectability in so- 
ciety, especially when the tests by which you are to 
be tried are constantly changing, but "Revenons." 

We are all quite well here, and the sick are recov- 
ering at Elmwood. These included Theodore and 
his wife. 

I was concerned to hear that Gallatin's pamphlet 
had shaken your faith. You could not have read 
it attentively. I think the reasoning of both his 
pamphlets tends to the conclusion that specie cur- 
rency is the best. He acknowledges changes in 
this which are great indeed in a bank man. He 
gives up the idea of a national bank as a regulator 
of currency and exchanges and goes for it only as a 
"fiscal agent." And although he is for State banks, 



88 A MEMOIR OF 

yet he reasons very like one who thought that they 
should be restricted to discount and deposit. But, 
after all, it is a great and perplexing subject — one 
upon which it is time enough for you to form your _ 
opinions, and one which you ought to study atten- 
tively at your leisure. God bless you, my dear 
nephew, and believe me, Yours affectionately, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

All here send their love, and Bob has written you 
several letters in a character which Champollion 
himself could not decipher. He says it means that 
"dear uncle must come home to see little Bob." 

The subject of this postscript was Mr. Hun- 
ter's first-born child and namesake, a boy of 
many hopes and much early promise. He 
developed into a youth who combined much 
of his father's ability, with the aesthetic tastes 
and bright graciousness of his mother, but the 
brilliant promise of his career was cut short 
by rapid consumption, which carried him off 
at the early age of twenty-two years. 

The fondest hopes and ambition of his 
father and whole family were centered in him, 
and his premature death not only clouded the 
brightness of a singularly happy home circle, 
but seemed to foreshadow the decline of the 
family fortunes. Mr. Hunter never complete- 
ly rallied from the blow, and said that his am- 
bition perished with his son. In a nature like 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 89 

his, this could not be literally true while he re- 
tained his own faculties, but it showed the 
depth of his grief and the bitterness of disap- 
pointed hope. 

The University friends of young R. M. T. 
Hunter were among the most promising of 
Virginia youth, and the bereaved mother 
treasured for the rest of her life the touching 
tributes to the early dead written by friends 
and classmates, some of whom are now prom- 
inent men, among them Colonel Archer An- 
derson of Richmond, Virginia; Professor 
James M. Garnett, late of the University of 
Virginia, now living in Baltimore, Md.; Pro- 
fessor Thomas R. Price of Columbia College, 
New York, and others. Young A. S. Pendle- 
ton, the gifted son of General W. N. Pendle- 
ton, and who afterwards fell in 1864 in the 
Valley of Virginia, wrote, as he said, " from 
a community of grief," and his- beautiful letter 
seemed dictated by almost fraternal pride and 
affection. 

But we anticipate in here recording this sad 
event, for before his life was thus overshad- 
owed, Mr. Hunter enjoyed a long period of 
prosperity and success in public life and pri- 
vate. 



90 A MEMOIR OF 

Before giving a number of letters written to 
his wife, while his hopes and ambition were 
comparatively unchecked, we will here insert 
one from his devoted aunt, of whose wise 
counsels he was soon afterwards deprived, for 
she did not live to rejoice in his later suc- 
cesses. 

This letter was written in January, 1838: 

I thank you sincerely for your kind letter. Its 
welcome was greatly enhanced, as it was unexpected, 
because Mr. Garnett had just received one of four 
pages, and Line another by the same mail, so that 
I ought not to have calculated on hearing. I should 
have written before to you, but knowing that Line 
was regular in her communications and loves so 
well to break your seal I determined to forego the 
pleasure of writing to you, knowing that your 
numerous correspondents must of necessity draw 
much upon your time, and I would rather hear 
through another, if by so doing you might gain 
a little leisure, a brief space to think your own 
thoughts. 

I know you will always keep a place in your heart 
for me and will never think of me but with kindest 
affection, so do not mistake me and think that I 
require any common assurances, such as usually 
seem necessary to keep friendship alive. 

No, Bob, I have that faith, that confidence in 
you, that neither time nor circumstances can shake. 
Your letter gave me much pleasure, as you may 
know, for I put it in my bag and have read it more 
than twice or thrice. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 91 

It found me at Elmwood, where I came to stay a 
few days with Fenton, who was quite sick and had 
a considerable bleeding from the lungs. On the 
same lovely Sabbath morning you mention having 
spent in walking and thinking of home and friends 
at home, I was wandering about these lovely paths, 
thinking of the past and also the future. I assure 
you my thoughts spoke awfully to me and seemed 
to admonish me of the frailty and shortness of my 
tenure. My prayer has been fully granted, for when 
you were all young I earnestly implored of God that 
He would spare me to watch over and supply a 
mother's place to her children; and now I have seen 
you all attain, I may almost say, everything I 
could have expected. In this my measure has been 
full, and now for all this ought I not to be thank- 
ful, to be cheerfully resigned to whatever my lot 
may be? I feel that I am generally so, but at times 
the spirit is willing, but the flesh weak. 

I will say nothing of churchgoing, for I feel that 
the time will come when you will say it is good that 
we should not forsake the assembling ourselves 
together. I expect you have had all the news from 
home and know more perhaps of them than I do. 
I have been here a week, and if they do not come 
up tomorrow I shall return to them. I have re- 
gretted very much being absent these few days from 
Mrs. Dandridge, for, on a close acquaintance, I 
perceive she is one whom we should all like to 
know more of, and I think I may say without 
reserve to you, she is equally pleased. No doubt 
Line has written to inform you that Charles has 
written to her brother Phil to come on immediately, 



92 A MEMOIR OF 

as there is now a vacancy for him. Maria sends 
you a great deal of love and says I must remind 
you to send the Nuga for Fenton, if you see an 
opportunity, to Fredericksburg. It is a French 
candy, and I mention this, as it may instruct you 
how to come at it. I have just concluded "Snarle- 
yow," with a feeling of disgust for the writer and 
the revolting scenes he has had the impertinence to 
force on his readers. I have nothing new to relate 
from your neighborhood. There seems very little 
of interest afloat above common gossip, which is 
very seldom on the side of "charity that thinketh 
no evil." 

I shall write to my old friend Archie Hunter and 
assure him of my existence. I ought long since to 
have done so, for he has been a good friend through 
a long life, and I am ashamed of my neglect. 

Of I can say nothing but that his downward 

course has surprised, vexed and mortified me. I 
think with you that his gifts are rare, but he wants 
that feeling which can alone give us high and ele- 
vated desires; he is satisfied to be on an equality 
with associates that he must know are not by the 
world considered as anything better than the beast 
that perishes. I wish he would return and marry, 
take to the law, and be the man he might. I am 
commissioned to give you a great deal of love, 
and particularly from poor Fenton. They have just 
taken her out to ride, and she charged me to men- 
tion her name particularly and specially. 

Your ever fondly devoted M. T. H. 

The following letter from Mrs. Hunter was 
written in the early years of her married life, 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 93 

when she had only two children, and before 
the cares of life had settled down as heavily as 
they afterwards did. No year is given, but it 
was probably written in January, 1842 or 1843. 

My Beloved Husband: 

I have been feeling so badly for the last week that 
I had intended not to inflict a letter upon you. This 
morning we are but a small band. Sally, Sister 
Martha, Sister, and Muscoe are at Elmwood, and 
Sister Jane is on the bed, not feeling very well. 
Ma is watching by her, and Bob, Pink and I are 
keeping house below stairs — so now you have an 
exact picture of us all. I fancy you comfortably 
seated in the House, enjoying the society of some 
pleasant companion, or reading in the library, en- 
sconced in a quiet alcove. 

Ma was very glad to hear from home through 
your last letter. She says I must ask you what the 
boys are doing in Washington in these hard times, 
and she seems to think they are getting on badly 
without her. 

It seems to me that Jefferson is certainly the most , 
desirable place in the world ate a residence, much 
more so than your "Sea-girt Isle," Cherokee coun- 
try, etc. 

I feel some curiosity to know where your last 
castle is. Can Mr. Lewis say nothing in favor of 
Alabama? 

Our Jefferson friends, except Brother, seem to 
be in a comfortable state of uncertainty as 10 their 
future prospects, but I hope they will find they can 



94 A MEMOIR OF 

get on as well in Jefferson as anywhere else. I in- 
cline to Brother's way of thinking, decidedly — that 
it is as much their own fault as anything else. They 
will have to take your plan of never lending your 
name before they can prosper anywhere. 

Where is the farm that Dr. Mallory recommends 
to Phil? 

Do pray persuade him to stay where he is. As to 
Lower Virginia, it may have been something in 
ages past, but I think its present system will soon 
ruin any master of a plantation; that is, provided 
the master owns a good many slaves and a quantity 
of poor land. But as we cannot agree on this sub- 
ject, I shall say no more. It is almost time for the 
mail to come in, and I rather dread it lest I should 
get no letter. 

When I fail to hear from you it seems a long 
time to wait for the next post. Bob seems deter- 
mined to write to you by every post, and I feel 
sometimes half tempted to put him upon his dig- 
nity, but he will be mean-spirited in spite of me. 
Do pray say something about his letters when you 
write again. He has been quite unwell for a week. 

Sister Jane thinks he has had fever for several 
nights, but I don't know that it amounts exactly to 
fever; he seems to feel pretty well through the day, 
and his appetite is as usual, yet he is not exactly 
himself. Pink is well, and as impudent as she can 
be. Farewell, my beloved husband; my heart aches 
to see you. Ever y'rs, M. E. H. 

P. S. — I hope you will be able to tell me of many 
sermons you have heard since we parted. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LETTERS TO HIS WIFE. 

Thursday, December, 1841. 
My Dear Wife: 

I have been so much engaged in getting lodgings 
that I have not had a place or opportunity for writ- 
ing to you before. We are at last settled at Hill's, 
on Capitol Hill. Mr. Wise, Dr. Mallory, Gilmer, 
Goode of Virginia, Hubbard of Virginia, Mr. ard 
Mrs. Coles and Governor Pope and his lady. The 
last we found here when we came, and are quite 
willing to have them as messmates. I think our 
messmates and quarters will both prove agreeable. 
Mrs. Wise has not come on yet and was very ill 
for many weeks. 

So far from these gentlemen having quarreled, as 
the public prints report, you perceive that they are 
entirely harmonious. It was exceedingly fortunate 
that Uncle James got me off on Sunday morning. 
On Monday the South lost the anti-abolition rule 
by three votes, and on Tuesday regained it by a 
majority of two, so that you see that it is always 
the best for one to keep exactly 'up to the line of 
his duty. 

As it is, however, all is well. We have saved the 
rule. I learn from what I believe to be good 
authority that Mallory is quite safe in his district. 

The report as to Wise's speech to his constitu- 
ents was in many respects false. But in the history 
I am giving you of my "familiars" you may ask, 
"Where is County Guy?" 
95 



g6 A MEMOIR OF 

Where is Mr. Calhoun? No tidings of him yet. 
But our friend Lewis is here, alive and looking 
exceedingly well. 

One reason for my choosing my present position 
is that I expect to be able to make comfortable 
arrangements for you here when you come on. A 
great many of the members have their wives with 
them, your Cousin Green Pendleton among the 
number. I have not yet seen John Kennedy. I 
asked one of the Pennsylvania members if he had 
brought his wife, and he replied that he had left 
her slaughtering pork. H'ow unsentimental! He 
meant, no doubt, that she was attending to putting 
it up. 

I never commenced a session with less spirit in 
my life. I have met with no companion who is 
half so agreeable as Bob, and I think so much of 
home that public affairs have not yet fastened upon 
my mind. Next week, however, we begin, and by 
that time I hope to be fairly at work. Give my love- 
to all at home, and kiss the children for me. God 
bless you, my dear Line. Yours, as ever. 

R. M. T. H. 

The next letter is written without date or 
caption. 

I was greatly obliged to you, my dearest wife, for 
your letter, and regret that my letters should have 
miscarried. 

I have generally written twice a week since I 
have been here, and always once. But the river has 
been closed with ice and the mails are irregular. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 97 

This must account to Sister for not getting an 
answer to her letter, which reached me but the day 
before yesterday, and a letter written tomorrow will 
get to her as soon as one sent yesterday. 

I was greatly concerned at your accident and trust 
that you will be more prudent for the future. 

I have been kept anxious for a fortnight now by 
the letters from heme, and even your last was a 
little gloomy. 

This is not your wont, you know. I trust in Him 
who always sustains those who do so, that we shall 
soon have a happy meeting and forget past troubles. 

I am cultivating a cheerful tone of mind and hope 
to take home to you quite a stock of good spirits. 

I think that the sky is clearing a little for me, 
and my trust in Providence deepens as I proceed 
in life. 

If I can be useful in my day and generation and 
see those around me happy and cheerful, my heart 
will rejoice. 

You are wrong in supposing that I was sick. I 
had a cold which was a little troublesome, but is 
not so now. 

Nor did I lie by even for an liour with it. Do 
not suppose when you fail to get a letter that I am 
sick, for I should be more certain to write to you 
when I was sick than when I was well. I am glad 
to hear that our dear boy is at last well. I know 
that he must be very sweet. 

By the way, Mr. Holmes was so delighted with a 
compliment that little Elizabeth paid you that he 
came to repeat it to me. She had bought a wax 
doll, which she was describing to him as splendid. 



9 8 



A MEMOIR OF 



"How splendid?" said he; "what is it like?" 
"Oh!" says she, "it is almost as splendid as Mrs. 

Hunter." 
You see that you have won her admiration at 

least. Give my love to all and tell Sister Jane that 

I shall soon write to her. Ever yours, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

My Dear Wife: 

I am about to be very busy again. A general 
debate is coming on, in which I may have to take 
part, and, in addition to that, the particular busi- 
ness of the Finance Committee is no light matter. 
I therefore write today lest in the multiplicity of 
engagements I might seem to neglect my dear wife, 
which I would not do for a great deal. 

I wish I were well out of the labors of the next 
week or two, as I am most anxious for an oppor- 
tunity to make a flying trip home. I hope, my dear 
Line, that you are using exercise and taking all care 
of yourself. How about the preparation of iron 
and the red blood which Spot says you must make? 
I hope you have not neglected his injunctions. 

We are to have an ascension of a balloon this 
evening, which I wish the children could see. I 
missed Franconi entirely. It was either raining or 
I was busy while he was here. 

Today the Countess Sartige has a matinee dansante, 
to which I am invited, but for many reasons I shall 
not go. 

I went last evening to see poor old Mr. Ritchie, 
who is very feeble, and I think not aware of his 
condition. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 99 

He is as much interested in politics as ever, and, 
I am told, says kind things of me. The President 
and I went to call on him, and afterward he in- 
sisted on my going with him to visit Mrs. Wood- 
bury and daughters, which I did. The old lady is 
an evergreen, and one of her daughters pretty and 
agreeable. But Bev. says I am an evergreen, so I 
had better make no criticisms on that subject, as 
they are somewhat suggestive of age. 

After the visit to the W.'s was over I went around 
to Aiken's to a party, but found it consisting wholly 
of men. I soon retired in disgust, without waiting 
for the supper, and was in bed at half-past ten. To- 
day (Saturday) I am hard at work, and tomorrow 
I fear it must be the same. 

I could undertake it all if you were with me, but 
as it is I feel that I am wasting and throwing away 
opportunities of happiness in this too long separa- 
tion. Give my love to all. Y'rs as ever, 

R. M. T. Hu.nter. 

Thursday, February 11, 1848. 
My Dear Line: 

I have just gotten through with the labor of writ- 
ing out my speech, and whilst I am waiting for the 
proofs I avail myself of the opportunity to write 
to you. 

I hope the speech will be out tomorrow. In the 
meantime I send you a complimentary notice of it 
in the New York Herald. I saw Steve last night 
He came over from Baltimore yesterday and re- 
turned to Jefferson this morning. 

He seemed very well and in fine spirits. He says 
everything is going on very well at the Bower and 



100 A MEMOIR OF 

seemed anxious to return to Serena. He says that 
they are about to give the bridal party a dinner at 
the Bower in a few days, and represents the young 
couple as devoted to an extent which he evidently 
thinks ridiculous. What a pity that a few years of 
matrimony should make sentiment ridiculous! I 
daresay you and I would laugh as much as Steve, 
but the sentiment is not gone for all that, either 
with him or with us. 

Mrs. Mason is in town, and Mason has left us for 
a few days, to be with her at Colonel Cooper's, his 
brother-in-law. She is a charming woman, the very 
model of a matron, and sends the kindest messages 
10 you and Mrs. Dandridge. I have been to A call 

on Mrs. . Jack told me she was outrageous at 

my neglect, but I think I propitiated her. 

There is a large mess there, who were very much 
amused at the account which Judge Butler gave 
them of a dinner that Mason and I gave to Mr. 
Rives and Mr. Lyons. 

On that day we had changed our cook to save 
money, and such a dinner! It became the jest of 
the town, and we returned to Walker on the spot. 
With the exception of that day we have lived re- 
markably well, but you should have seen Mason's 
countenance as it passed off. The dessert consisted 
of one plate of hard, red apples, which Butler said 
was the "lonesomest dish" that ever he saw upon 
the table. We gave them another dinner and re- 
trieved the character of our mess's cuisine, but he 
(Butler) insists that the first dinner was the most 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER IOI 

pleasant. Give my love to all, and tell Bob I re- 
ceived his letter and will write to him soon. I was 
much pleased with it. Y'rs as ever, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

P. S. — Your Cousin Mary was highly delighted 
with Bob's poetry. 

[No Date.] 
My Dear Wife: 

I wish very much that I could see some time 
ahead of me when I could promise myself a visit 
home. 

I do not like to hear of your headaches and all 
the work of which you write. Do hire somebody 
to assist you. We are quite in a stir today at our 
mess. Mason has undertaken to give a "lunch" at 
our house to Lord Elgin and suite, the English and 
French Ministers and the Cabinet. I rather think 
it will not go off very well, but I do not care much 
about it. I will help him out as well as I can. 

I saw Lord Elgin the other evening at Cramp- 
ton's, with his sash and star. I thought it looked 
rather ridiculous; but they say he is a sensible, un- 
ostentatious man. It was the Queen's birthnight, 
so I suppose he was bound to x appear in this dress. 
There is a Sir Charles Gray here, formerly Gov- 
ernor of Jamaica, said also to be a clever man, but 
the most complete personification of the "Jack of 
Clubs" you ever saw. From our "lunch" we go to 
Sartige's to a matinee dansante, and thence to Sena- 
tor Fish's to dine with my lord, so that we have the 
prospect of much dissipation ahead of us. 

I would much rather be at home today, and you 
do not know how much I want to see you all. 



102 A MEMOIR OF 

What you say of Bob makes me feel quite old. A 
young man on our hands is calculated to make us 
look over our years. I hope that he will fit himself 
to discharge the duties of manhood by the time that 
he reaches it. Give my love to all, and believe me, 
Yours as ever, R. M. T. Hunter. 

February 17, 1848. 
My Dear Line: 

I received your letter and was gratified to learn 
that Muscoe was coming up. 

I regret that the arrangement you propose cannot 
be made. My room is about 12x14, and no room 
for another bed. Neither is there another spare 
room in the house. 

I will try, however, to see if a room can be 
obtained near us, so that Muscoe can mess with us. 
I have lost your proposed plan for the addition. 
When Muscoe comes I will get him to explain it, 
but I suspect my plan is best. 

If you have much preference for the other plan, 
see what difference it would make in the cost, and 
let me know; but I cannot pay much in addition to 
what I have proposed, as "the beautiful ponies" 
cost money. I hope they are quite gentle by this 
time. How do they come on? I feel very lone- 
some without you here and am determined to ar- 
range it better next session. I go out very little, 
and my room is so uncomfortable with its stove 
that I do not spend much time in it. I do most of 
my work in a committee room in the Capitol, where 
I now am. 

I hope you received my speech. I sent Sister 
Martha the German paper; tell her the German 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER IO3 

stood me in good stead in preparing material for 

my speech, as the best authority in Mexico is 1 , 

a book not yet translated. 

Mr. Dix, the Senator from New York, told me 
that he was going to send copies of my speech to 
Mr. Cobden, and to others in Europe. Do not tell 
this out of the family, as it might seem vain. Give 
my love to all, and tell Mrs. Dandridge that I am 
hoping to hear she is quite happy at all the good 
news I wrote last week. Do not let Jimmy and 
Sarah forget me. 

Bob and Pink, I know, will remember me. 

Yours as ever, R. M. T. Hunter. 

My Dear Line: 

I was glad to hear that James was better, but I 
could wish that he recovered faster; although it 
was to be expected that he would have some return 
of fever. 

I wish I were with you. Even my last visit has 
drawn me more closely to you, if that were possible. 
Although painful in many respects, some of its 
recollections are very dear to me. 

We are all in excitement and turmoil here. I 
should not have said we, for I do not share in 
much of it. 

Tomorrow the Baltimore Convention meets, and 
I shall go over for a day as a spectator. The result 
is quite uncertain. Tell Muscoe I will write to him 
as soon as it is over, and that he must not be aston- 
ished at any result. Tell Sister that the second part 

of is not out yet. I will get the last number 

of "Dombey" when I return, and send it to her. 

x Name illegible. 



104 A MEMOIR OF 

I would much rather be with you than here dur- 
ing the present week, but it will not do to leave. 
My best love to all. Tell Mrs. Dandridge that Mr. 
J., of Baltimore, told me he saw Phil Dandridge the 
other day, and that he was looking remarkably well. 
Yours as ever, R. M. T. Hunter. 

July 5, 1850. 
My Dear Wife: 

This is Sunday morning and I am getting up my 
correspondence, which I hope to do in time for 
church. 

That is to say, should there be preaching in the 
Capitol. Our chaplain, Mr. Butler, they say is a 
fine preacher, and if so I shall endeavor to attend 
punctually after he commences preaching. I have 
just returned from a visit to Mr. Calhoun, who has 
been quite ill with pneumonia. He is much better 
this morning, I rejoice to say, for we could have 
illy spared him at this time. They say he is now 
out of danger. 

By the way, we had an adventure yesterday which 
would have amused you. Signora and Signorita 
Rosas, wife and daughter of the Mexican Minister, 
left their cards for our mess in person, whereupon 
we procured Mr. John Mason, who talks Spanish, 
and went over en masse to see them. The signorita 
talks a little broken English, but not enough to 
make conversation practicable. It is the first time 
I ever saw James Mason confused. The judge said 
he was "pompous silence" personified. 

These ladies must be more than half Indian, but 
their manners were pleasant, modest and easy. Next 
Thursday I shall call on Lady Bulwer. Write me, 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER IO5 

my dear Line, how things are going on at home. 
Give my best love to all and kiss the children for 
me. Yours as ever, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

In May, 1852, he writes: 
My Dearest Wife: 

I wish very much that I could get off for a day or 
two, but the Deficiency Bill hangs on, and I find 
little time for anything but my official duties. I 
think my labors have not been useless, and although 
greater than I like, yet I wish to hold on through 
the session. Do not suppose, however, that any- 
thing can wean me from my wife and family. 

I have been struck, as you were, with Mr. Clay's 
seeming preference for dying here. Judge Butler 
has returned, and we have determined to move out 
to the suburbs of the town, to Mr. [name illegible], 
which is almost in the country. 

So far there is much difficulty in the kitchen 
cabinet. Our cook and chambermaid refuse to 
forego the attractions of city life, but Isaac carries 
things with a high hand, and as he is intent upon 
the removal, I think we shall accomplish it. The 
quarters are said to be delightful, and we shall be 
quite alone. 

[No date.] 
My Dearest Line: 

I received your letter today and hope you may have 
a pleasant trip to Richmond. It is the first attempt 
you have ever made to be cunning, and you succeed 
very poorly. 



106 A MEMOIR OF 

To induce me to refuse a place in the Cabinet, 
you tell me of the Richmond Whig, and its being 
down on me. 

You thought this was a capital hit. I have not 
seen the pieces, but I am told the Whig is quite 
complimentary and evidently desires that I should 
go in. But I do not waver in my determination. 
You have seen, of course, the dreadful calamity 
which has befallen Pierce. I could not write when 
such a wound was fresh in his heart. Poor Mr. 
Lawrence, too, died a day or two after I left Boston 
I found a kind note from Winthrop upon my return, 
regretting that he did not know I was in Boston 
until the day I left. He said he called to invite me 
to spend the evening with Thackeray, but I was 
gone. Muscoe is in good spirits. He hears good 
news for his political prospects, and I suppose he 
has written his mother as to what he has learned. 
Give my love to all. This is the eleventh letter 
which I have written today, and the longest yet to 
come. May God bless you, my dear wife. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM 1853 TO 1865. 

In 1853, Mr. Hunter declined the first place 
in the Cabinet, offered him by President 
Pierce, between whom and himself a cordial 
friendship existed, and always continued. 
Family reasons combined with those of a pub- 
lic nature to determine him to this resolve, 
and he was firm in resisting the wishes of 
many friends. One of these wrote from Bal- 
timore: 

January 12, 1853. 

I lamented to hear on my arrival in Washington 
that you had announced your definitive determina- 
tion not to go into General Pierce's Cabinet, but, 
although that intelligence seemed to diminish the 
importance of the interview I had desired with you, 
I have heard since my return that you had wished 
to see me and would be glad to hear from me by 
letter. 

I entertained a great hope of being able, if I had 
seen you before you formed your final determina- 
tion, to offer some suggestions which might have 
led you to a different conclusion. 

I did not and scarcely now doubt that you would 
be enabled to form a Cabinet generally satisfactory 
to the party and the country at large, and I thought 
that in the actual posture of the affair your declining 
to do so would be more perilous to yourself person- 
ally and politically, and more mischievous to the 
107 



Y 



M 



I08 A MEMOIR OF 

party, than if you had submitted to some disagree- 
able sacrifices in constructing an Administration. 
It is, however, I fear, now too late to press or en- 
large upon these topics, and I hope you may yet 
have it in your power to mitigate much of the mis- 
chief I had apprehended. 

On the same subject, viz., his declining the 
offered Cabinet position, President Pierce wrote 
as follows : 

Andover, Mass., 
Saturday Evening, January 15, 1853. 
My Dear Hunter: 

Your letter of the nth inst. was forwarded to me 
tonight from Concord. The conclusion to which 
your mind has been led is rather a matter of regret 
than disappointment. The field of the country is 
entirely open to me, you being the only individual 
to whom it has been even suggested that I should 
desire their services. There is a great deal of 
weight in your suggestions. Probity, admitted emi- 
nent qualifications, sound principles, unity in senti- 
ment and opinions are what I must secure. I am 
not tenacious with regard to men. 

Although my judgment will probably be formed 
with regard to the Cabinet before I leave New Eng- 
land, it is quite probable that I may go to Wash- 
ington as early as the middle of February. I am 
fully aware that I have no right to claim so much of 
your time and kindly consideration, still I know 
your disinterestedness and must urge you to write 
to me freely upon all such matters as you deem it 
important for me to weigh. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER IO9 

I have not yet fully recovered from my bodily 
injuries, and my spirit is almost crushed by this 
overwhelming bereavement, but I expect to go to 
Concord on Monday, and hope to be able to gather 
up my energies for the great responsibilities before 
me. Yr. friend, 

Frank. Pierce. 

Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, U. S. Senate. 

P. S. — I have not seen Mr. Atherton since his 
return, but expect to see him Monday. 

January 31. 
My Dear Hunter: 

I have been surprised to find among my papers a 
few moments since the letter you will receive here- 
with. 

From some mistake it was not sent to the office, 
but it will now account at least for an apparently 
gross negligence. 

I think I shall be able to arrange matters satis- 
factorily to myself, and in a manner to command 
the approbation of some judicious, disinterested 
friends. I have not seen Atherton for several days. 
He is, like myself, in deep affliction on account of 
the death of his father and only sister. 
In haste, Your friend, 

Frank. Pierce. 
Hon. R. M. T. Hunter; U. S. Senate. 

Washington, D. C. 

Mr. Hunter was on very friendly terms with 
President Buchanan, who sought his counsel 



IIO A MEMOIR OF 

on several occasions. We only give one of 
his notes in attestation of this statement, as 
they would not be of public interest. 

April 9, 1855. 
My Dear Sir: 

If quite convenient, I should be gratified to see 
you today on a matter of some importance. I 
would name 12 M., but if this hour be not con- 
venient, please to appoint another. 

Your friend, James Buchanan. 

Senator Hunter. 

The following letters were written in 1858, 
after Mr. Hunter's oration at the unveiling of 
Crawford's equestrian statue of Washington: 

New York, May 17, 1858. 
My Dear Sir: 

I received your oration on Washington, which 
I have read with exceeding interest. The more his 
career is studied the more prominent will be his 
superiority in courage, prudence, judgment and 
patriotism. I take leave to inclose for you a docu- 
ment which must have an interest for a Virginian — 
the proceedings of the earliest Legislative Assembly 
in the Western Hemisphere. 

I remain, dear sir, very truly yours, 

Geo. Bancroft. 

Mr. Hunter's friend and kinsman by mar- 
riage, Mr. Beverly Tucker, then Consul to 
Liverpool, wrote as follows: 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER III 

Liverpool, March 15, 1858. 
My Dear Hunter: 

I offer you my felicitations upon your unequaled — 
even by yourself — oration. Every effort upon that 
theme pales before it. Please send Jimmy and Bev. 
and Ran. pamphlet copies of it. James Ellis Tucker, 
Beverly D. Tucker, John Randolph Tucker. Don't 
fail to send your oration to the above named. 

Beverly Tucker. 

Liverpool, March 18, 1858. 
My Dear Sir: 

I sent your speech to Mr. Whitty, editor of the 
Morning Post, one of the ablest journals in England. 

I was much surprised and gratified this morning 
to find that he had inserted two well-selected col- 
umns from it in his paper. This is a high compli- 
ment, and, I am told, entirely unprecedented. I do 
not know the editor of the Post personally, but have 
had a little correspondence with him in a friendly 
way in reference to his mistajken attacks upon slavery. 

I inclose a copy of the Post to you, and one to the 
Washington Union and Star. 

Yours truly, but in great haste, 

Beverly Tucker. 

Of his address at the V. M. I. the following 
notice was written by General Smith to Mr. 
Letcher : 



112 



A MEMOIR OF 



Virginia Military Institute, 

January 8, 1858. 
To Hon. John Letcher: 

My Dear Sir— I send you by today's mail all the 
copies of Mr. Hunter's address 1 which we have at 
disposal. 

Although we had a very large edition published, 
the demand has been so great for them that we are 
reduced to some eight or ten copies. This fact is 
the highest eulogium to an address which for purity 
of thought and expression, and clear philosophical 
reasoning, is unsurpassed by any I ever read. 

I saw Mrs. Letcher on Sunday. All well. With 
kindest wishes, I am, very truly your friend, 

Francis H. Smith. 

Richmond, April 2, 1858. 
Hon. R. M. T. Hunter: 

Dear Sir — I am greatly obliged to you for the 
interesting documents of this and the last session 
that you have been kind enough to send me, and 
beg that you will bear me in mind when you have 
anything of the sort for distribution. 

I am also thankful for the copy of your speech on 
the admission of Kansas. I had previously occu- 
pied a portion of the little time I have to spare for 
politics in reading it. I hope that you will not sus- 
pect me of flattery when I say that, in my judgment, 
it leaves nothing further to be desired on the part 



a Address delivered before the two literary socie- 
ties of the Virginia Military Institute, July 3, 1857, 
by Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER II3 

of the South. In its thorough analysis of the com- 
plex matters discussed, in force of logic and in 
candor, it stands ahead of anything I have seen yet. 
I marvel that you can preserve such judicial calm- 
ness in view of insolence which at the distance of 
130 miles makes the blood boil in the veins of a 
quiet non-politician like myself. 

It certainly is well for us not to lose our temper, 
since it is the last thing left for us to lose. 
Very respectfully yours, 

George W. Randolph. 

I have dwelt more in detail on the incidents 
of Mr. Hunter's life up to the time the war 
cloud broke upon the South. 

He had lived under its shadow, and antici- 
pated the outburst long before others had 
marked the gathering storm. 

In a letter to his sister Jane, without date, 
but probably written some years before the 
crisis, he says: 

It would be wrong to say that there is not a 
species of morbid excitement which reaches even 
me in my present position. I am far, too, from 
concealing the fact that I take a deep interest in 
public matters just now. We are on the eve of a 
great crisis in public affairs, if we are not already 
in it. The South is not aware of its own position, 
and can only be warned by degrees. I believe that 
even twenty men in this body who would act as I 
am disposed to do could — I will not say save the 
country, but at least act as a salutary check upon 



114 A MEMOIR OF 

the excesses of the two great parties who are dis- 
tracting our country. I believe that the day is not 
far distant when my course will stand justified by 
absolute experience. 

While Mr. Hunter was not one of the eager 
secessionists who would have hastened to 
leave the Union without parley or condition, 
his hesitation ended with the withdrawal of 
Virginia from the Federal Government, and 
he did not wish her to linger a moment longer 
than the strictest principle of honor de- 
manded. 

Foreseeing, as he did, the infinite miseries 
of the struggle which he so eloquently por- 
trayed in his last speech in the United States 
Senate, he was anxious to avert the crisis as 
long as the dignity and honor of his native 
State permitted; but when Virginia seceded, 
he resigned his seat in the Senate and threw 
himself into the interests of the Confederacy 
with all his energies and abilities. He was 
soon invited by President Davis to accept the 
office of Secretary of State of the Confederate 
States in his second Cabinet, and rilled this 
position until elected in 1862 to the Confeder- 
ate States Senate, in which body he served un- 
til the evacuation of Richmond and the dis- 
persion of the Confederate Government. Public 






ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 115 

and private troubles alike pressed upon him 
from the beginning of the war. 

As we have already said, Mr. Hunter's eld- 
est son and namesake came home from the 
University of Virginia in May, 1861, in the 
early stages of the fatal disease which ended 
his brief career in November of the same year, 
and during this illness his father's enforced 
absence from home was embittered by public 
anxieties and responsibilities. It required all 
his natural fortitude and Christian resignation 
to bear the crushing blow which destroyed his 
ambitious hopes and wounded his affections 
almost in the tenderest point, and it may be 
truly sard that Mr. Hunter was never the same 
after 1861. 

Calamities — public and private — pursued him 
during the war, for there was no disaster to our 
arms which he did not feel as personal, and he 
never hesitated to neglect his own interests in 
furthering those of his beloved State. 

Patriotism was with him not merely an ex- 
traneous sentiment, but part and parcel of his 
being, and almost his last words, addressed to 
a young friend and relative, were: " Don't for- 
get your country." He was one of the three 
Confederate Commissioners appointed by Mr. 






> 



Il6 A MEMOIR OF 

Davis to treat with Messrs. Lincoln and Sew- 
ard at the Fortress Monroe Conference, his 
associates being the Hon. A. H. Stephens, of 
Georgia, and Hon. John A. Campbell, of Lou- 
isiana, ex-Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. Mr. Hunter was 
one among the prominent men summoned by 
Mr. Lincoln to meet him in Richmond to con- 
fer as to the restoration of Virginia to her rela- 
tions in the Federal Union, a meeting which 
was to have been held in April, 1865, but 
which was prevented by the untimely death 
of Mr. Lincoln by the hand of a madman. 

The Hampton Roads Conference has now 
become a matter of history, and need not here 
be entered upon, but the projected meeting 
with Lincoln in Richmond in April, 1865, is 
mentioned in the following letter from Mr. 
Hunter, lately republished by the friend to 
whom it was addressed. 

After some account of the Old Point Con- 
ference, Mr. Hunter says: 

I never saw Mr. Lincoln afterwards, but he was 
in Richmond soon after the surrender, and, Judge 
Campbell tells me, expressed a great anxiety to see 
me, as he was under the impression that my name 
would have some weight with the South, and that 
he and I together might agree upon some proposi- 
tion which would bring the warring sections to- 
gether. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER \1J 

He expressed much confidence in the honesty of 
my intention and in my influence with the Southern 
people, but said he could not wait long, as he was 
obliged to be in Washington by a certain time. 

Judge Campbell told him that it was impossible 
for me to reach Richmond in time to meet him, not 
knowing that I lived only fifty miles from that city. 

Mr. Lincoln went to Washington to meet his 
death, and Judge Campbell thinks that our meeting 
might have saved the South much trouble. 

Whether this is the case or not, I do not know, 
but I have always regretted that circumstances pre- 
vented our meeting at that time. I do not know 
that these facts will be of use to you, and, although 
not designed for publication, you may be able to 
make some good use of them privately. 

Yours truly and respectfully, 

R. M. T. Hunter. 

In 1864, Mr. Hunter lost his beloved 
nephew, M. R. H. Garnett, whom he trusted 
and consulted in matters personal and polit- 
ical, and whose companionship was most con- 
genial. 

To the day of his death he mourned the loss 
he had sustained in this bereavement. Mr. 
Garnett had married, in i860, Miss M. P. Stev- 
ens, the daughter of Mr. E. A. Stevens, of Ho- 
boken, New Jersey, and between this lady and 
Mr. Hunter the most cordial affection existed. 



Il8 A MEMOIR OF 

She proved her relation-like feeling, and en- 
deared herself to her husband's family, with 
whom she was identified. 

Mr. Hunter's high character, unimpeached 
during his long public career, commanded re- 
spect from all who knew him, and he pos- 
sessed the confidence of some of our most dis- 
tinguished officers, as was shown by their let- 
ters during the war. 

Among these military friends were General 
Joseph E. Johnston, whose abilities he rated 
very highly; General Cobb, of Georgia; Gen- 
eral Magruder, and many others. 

For our great commander his admiration 
and respect were unbounded, and the follow- 
ing letter from General Lee shows his trust 
and confidence in Mr. Hunter: 
[confidential.] 
Headquarters, Camp Fred., 

February 12, 1863. 
My Dear Sir: 

I am very much obliged to you for your letter of 
the 6th inst. and for the interest you take in this 
army. 

Its welfare is the constant subject of my thoughts 
and causes me anxious days and sleepless nights. 

Since its return to Culpepper, in November, in 
addition to efforts to draw subsistence from the sur- 
rounding counties, I have been urging upon the 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER II9 

Department the subject of its future existence, and 
have hoped that everything has been done that can 
be. In my visits to Richmond, on two occasions, I 
personally represented to the Secretary (Mr. Ran- 
dolph on the first occasion, and Mr. Seddon on the 
second) the importance of this subject. Recently I 
sent the Chief Commissary and Quartermaster to 
Richmond to see personally to this matter. I have, 
however, adopted your recommendations, and again 
urged upon the Secretary the necessity of sending 
competent officers after the meat, and offered to 
send an officer and men, if necessary, to assist in 
its transportation across the broken part of the 
railroad. 

I will be extremely obliged to you if you will do 
what you can in this matter. It will be impossible 
to maintain our position in front of the enemy, or 
even to keep our army together, if it cannot be fed. 
The salt meat is now reduced to a fourth of a pound 
per man a day — a small allowance when there is 
but little else besides flour to add to it. 

Still we get some fresh meat about every other 
day — one and a quarter pounds per day to each 
man — so that half the time the meat ration is suffi- 
cient. I have men and -cavalry all over western 
counties — Hampshire, Randolph, Pendleton, Tucker, 
etc. — collecting cattle, but they are scarce and thin 
now and ought to be reserved till next summer, 
when they will be more wanted. As to wheat, all 
that we can haul is being gathered by our commis- 
saries and sent to Richmond. But forage is so 
scarce, we have to go such great distances for it, 



120 A MEMOIR OF 

and the roads are now become so bad that it takes 
all our transportation to haul provisions to the men 
and forage to the animals. 

We are suffering as much for the latter as the 
former, and the hard labor, exposure and scarcity 
of forage are causing us to lose many of our horses. 
I have been obliged to deprive myself of artillery 
and cavalry to a great extent and send them off 
where they can be subsisted. In case of a sudden 
attack I do not know what I shall do, for the dis- 
tance they are from me, added to the impractica- 
bility of the roads, would render it impossible for 
them to reach me in time'. 

I remain very truly yours, R. E. Lee. 

Hon. R. M. T. Hunter. 

Mr. Hunter's private knowledge of the des- 
titute and precarious condition of our army 
depressed his spirits, and when rallied by those 
who did not share this knowledge, or possess 
his means of information, or his want of hope- 
fulness, he would endeavor to disguise his 
forebodings and assume a cheerfulness which 
he was far from feeling. 

He realized so vividly all that was involved 
in the collapse of the Confederacy, the com- 
plete ruin — public and private — to all the sur- 
vivors of the Civil War; and far beyond any 
individual loss or failure was his grief in wit- 
nessing his country's downfall. With a truly 
prophetic vision he saw the long subjugation 
that must ensue, and the crushing- out of a 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 121 

noble and independent spirit, for which no 
restoration of material prosperity could com- 
pensate. This may seem exaggerated lan- 
guage, but those who have watched the prog- 
ress of events will perhaps admit that much 
of the characteristic Southern nature has dis- 
appeared, never to return. While few or none 
regret the destruction of what has been called 
our peculiar institution, and while we rejoice 
in the fact of emancipation, there are points 
of national character which we cannot lose 
without deterioration, and which are but in- 
differently replaced by what is fitly termed 
" our new departure." The spirit of Southern 
chivalry, so 'burlesqued by parody and held up 
to ridicule, so unfairly represented in the light 
literature of the day, may be obscured or ab- 
solutely destroyed; yet the day may dawn 
when its loss may be felt, and in time of crisis 
or danger we may turn in vain appeal from 
our self-chosen standards of mercantile and 
material progress to the 'memory of " a ban- 
ner with a strange device." 

Practical and mechanical abilities are not to 
be underrated, but as the soul inspires and di- 
rects the body, so high aims and unselfish ef- 
forts for the general good form the character 
for real attainment, both moral and material. 



CHAPTER IX. 

AFTER THE WAR. 

At the close of the war Mr. Hunter returned 
broken in finances to a home desolated by mis- 
^Y fortunes of many kinds. 

He had lost heavily in the struggle, for, be- 
sides the evils of war common to all, a special 
raid on his property had been organized by 
order of General B. F. Butler, and some troops 
were sent in gunboats up the Rappahannock 
in the summer of 1863. His mill, from which 
he derived his chief means of support, was 
burnt to the ground, his horses and cattle 
were taken, and ruin stared him in the face. 
These pecuniary losses were, however, over- 
shadowed by family bereavements, and in the 
spring of 1865 he lost his second daughter, 
Sarah S. Hunter, a gifted girl, not yet nine- 
teen, who, like her brother Robert, fell a vic- 
tim to rapid consumption. Her rare talents 
and unselfish nature had won the love and 
admiration of her family and friends, and, 
while still suffering from this loss, Mr. Hun- 
ter was arrested in May, 1865, and confined 
for several months in Fort Pulaski, with the 
122 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 23 

Hon. James A. Seddon, the last Confederate 
Secretary of War, and other distinguished 
Confederates. 

The following letter, written in July, more 
than two months after his capture, shows the 
philosophy and resignation with which he ac- 
cepted the situation: 

Fort Pulaski, July 30, 1865. 
My Dear Daughter: - 

I received letters from your mother and yourself, 
which were both dated on the 17th of this month. 

I begin to receive letters more frequently, and 
you may imagine how much they gratify me when 
they come. 

You say you are constantly imagining my employ- 
ments and picturing to yourself how I am feeling. 
The life of a captive is so monotonous that it would 
not be difficult to give you its history while I am 
here. I have much time for reading and reflection, 
and I hope I shall not throw away the opportunity. 
Although the lessons of misfortune are often very 
severe, still they have their uses, and it depends 
upon yourself whether you may not find some com- 
pensation for them. If they are sent by God, there 
is surely some good use to be made of them, so 
that you must all keep up your spirits and your 
courage. Indeed, if my friends are right in the 
encouraging letters which they send me, there is 
reason to hope that my release is not very distant. 
It is true that my own hopes have been constantly 



124 A MEMOIR OF 

disappointed, but I will not despond or despair. On 
the 17th Mr. Seward wrote me that he would soon 
call the attention of the President to my case. 

When he sees Governor Pierpont's request for 
my release and examines the other papers I think 
he must agree to my discharge on parole. Your 
mother says that my friends are very active, which 
is very gratifying information, and if they keep up 
their exertions they will be successful. 

You say that the boys are very energetic — James 
in attending to my affairs, and the others busy with 
their studies. 

Your mother says very little of the farm and noth- 
ing of the mill. Perhaps there was nothing pleasant 
to say, but still I would like to hear. Tell her I 
cannot make plans for her at this distance; she will 
have to manage for herself. But I wish I was at 
home and could reduce my affairs to order. 

Good-bye, my dear child, and give my best love 
to all. Tell the boys to write to me, and you must 
all write often. Your affectionate father, 

R. M. T. H. 

P. S. — Mr. Seddon sends warm regards to the 
family. He is as well as usual. 

Two days before the last letter was written 
Mr. Hunter's family had sustained another 
crushing misfortune. 

His youngest son, Muscoe R. G. Hunter, 
called after M. R. H. Garnett, was drowned on 
the 28th of July, 1865, while bathing with 
some other boys. This promising boy of fif- 
teen was thought to resemble his father in per- 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 125 

son and disposition, and was especially be- 
loved by him, so that the blow fell with stun- 
ning force. His faith in Providence and nat- 
ural fortitude never deserted him, and the 
time of his release from imprisonment was 
now approaching. The efforts and interces- 
sions of friends, both Northern and Southern, 
had been unremitting, and in August, 1865, 
Dr. Dandridge, of Cincinnati, came to Essex 
and took his sister, Mrs. Hunter, to Washing- 
ton, thinking the time favorable for her per- 
sonal intercession. In interviews with the 
President and Mr. Seward, Mrs. Hunter ex- 
erted her influence and powers of persuasion 
so effectually that she gained the cause she 
pleaded, and Mr. Hunter always attributed his 
release to her. He now returned home, and, 
as Mr. Micou writes: " Devoted himself to 
study and to agricultural pursuits, seldom par- 
ticipating in public affairs. His speech in 
New York City in the Presidential canvass of 
1872, and an occasional appearance in his own 
State, are the only instances now recalled." 
At the close of the war, some of Mr. Hunter's 
friends, notably General Roger A. Pryor, who 
had himself been so successful in adapting his 
brilliant faculties to a new career, advised him 



126 A MEMOIR OF 

to remove to a city and practice law, but his 
heart was inalienably devoted to his home and 
State. 

He was very tenacious of friendships and in- 
timacies, and in the course of a long and va- 
ried life he rarely lost a friend by his own 
fault. Two of his friends, the late Hon. 
Lewis E. Harvie and Colonel Frank Ruffin, 
were highly valued, and no change of party 
or difference in political opinion weakened 
their mutual regard. 

Among his chosen friends was Mr. L. Q. 
Washington, who always showed him respect 
and affection, and their long correspondence 
attests their unbroken attachment and esteem 
for each other. In 1874, Mr. Hunter was 
elected by the Legislature Treasurer of Vir- 
ginia, and discharged the duties of this office 
until January, 1880, when he was defeated for 
re-election in consequence of the triumph of 
what was then called the Readjuster party. 
While living in Richmond, Mr. Hunter added 
new friends to his list, and Mrs. J. G. Cabell, 
especially, treated him with the affectionate 
kindness of a relation. To Dr. Hunter Mc- 
Guire he was also indebted for much kindness 
and attention both to himself and family, and 
he always retained a grateful sense of these 
benefits. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 12J 

Some of Mr. Calhoun's friends wrote to Mr. 
Hunter during his tenure of office in Rich- 
mond, urging him to write a life of the great 
South Carolinian; but, while no work would 
have been more congenial to him in the prime 
of life and health, his energies and fortunes 
were alike unequal at this time to what would 
once have been a labor of love. 

No more ardent friend and admirer of the 
eminent statesman ever lived, and in 1843 Mr- 
Hunter had published a short political biogra- 
phy of Mr. Calhoun. He often said how much 
pleasure he would take in writing a full and 
adequate memoir of one who had been his 
personal friend, as well as his guide and coun- 
selor in politics. 

But his mind was too much occupied by 
pecuniary and domestic troubles to admit of 
any sustained literary effort, and he reluctant- 
ly declined a task which- he thought could be 
more worthily executed by another. An oc- 
casional article on some public question, such 
as his letter to Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, on the 
Texas and Pacific Railway, in 1876, was the 
extent of his work outside of his official and 
private duties, but the following letters from 
friends show that they knew his interest in 
them and their affairs unabated : 



128 A MEMOIR OF 

From Professor Holmes: 

University of Virginia, March 15, 1875. 
Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, Richmond, Va.: 

Dear Sir — I should have written sooner to request 
you to accept shelter in my tent and such attention 
as the times permit on your visit to the university 
at the semi-centennial, but I waited for assurance 
that I would not interfere with the arrangements 
proposed by the committee of the alumni. 

It affords me great pleasure to be able now to 
extend to you a cordial invitation and to state that 
I consider myself to have a special claim to the 
honor of entertaining you on such an occasion. The 
chair which I hold has been occupied only by my- 
self; it was established by your patient urgency — it 
was distinctly your creation. You drew the large 
lines of its orbit, within which I have been lost for 
so many years. There is something appropriate in 
according me the only opportunity of rendering 
suitable homage to the Constituter of the Chair. 
I hope for an early and favorable reply, and remain 
with high respect and regard, 

Dear sir, your obedient servant, 

Geo. Frederick Holmes. 

From his friend and former classmate at the 
University, Professor H. Tutwiler, he received 
the following letter, the interest of which ex- 
plains its insertion: 

Greene Spring, Ala., May 13, 1875. 
My Dear Sir: 

I received a few days since a letter from a Mr. 
Ingram, of London, asking me if I could give him 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 129 

any information about Edgar Poe, particularly in 
regard to his career at the University of Virginia. 

He says that Mr. Long gave him my name and 
address as that of one likely to be able to assist him 
in writing a New Memoir of Poe, a prospectus of 
which I inclose. 

Mr. Long also mentioned your name as having 
been a student at the same time, and Mr. Ingram 
begs me to procure for him "any anecdote or recol- 
lection, however trifling it may seem, of his ways 
and conduct." I should be glad to aid Mr. Ingram, 
but I know nothing of Poe at the university, except 
that he was a student (so called) for a short time 
while I was there. Alibone, in his "Dictionary of 
Authors," has made some glaring mistakes. "That 
he was adopted by a kind-hearted merchant — Mr. 
Allan, of Baltimore; was sent to the University of 
Virginia in 1822, where he was equally distinguished 
as a scholar, an athlete and a debauchee. In the 
first named capacity he elicited the respect of the 
tutors; in the second, the envy and admiration of 
his fellow students; in the third, he offended the 
academical authorities and was expelled/' 

If you know anything about Poe, or can refer me 
to any one now living who knew him at the univer- 
sity, I shall be glad to communicate the facts to Mr. 
Ingram, who seems to be a very zealous and ardent 
admirer of Poe. In his letter to me he mentions 
the names of Steward (Stuart?), a Dr. Ambler, Mr. 
Thos. Boiling, and others, and in conclusion he 
says, "I need scarcely remark that I shall be only 
too glad to purchase or pay for anything relating to 
my inquiries." 



I3O A MEMOIR OF 

I have corresponded with Mr. Long very regu- 
larly ever since he left the university. He was, as 
you know, in strong sympathy with the South dur- 
ing the war. You have no doubt seen his "An- 
toninus " and the noble tribute which he pays to 
General Lee in the preface. He sent a copy of this 
work to General Lee through me, and in acknowl- 
edging the receipt of the General's letter, which was 
also transmitted through me, he says, "If I were 
not detained here by circumstances, I would cross 
the Atlantic to see the first and noblest man of our 
day." He then adds, "I did not answer General 
Lee's letter because I thought that he is probably 
troubled with many letters. If ever you should have 
occasion to write to him, I beg you will present to 
him my most respectful regards and a hope that he 
will leave some commentaries, to be placed on the 
same shelf with Caesar's"; and then adds, "I am 
afraid he is too honest to do this." Mr. Long fin- 
ished last year the last and fifth volume of his 
"Decline of the Roman Republic." It is to me the 
most interesting history I have ever read of that 
period. The last volume contains the history of the 
Civil Wars and the events to Caesar's death. 

He says that he took the greatest pains with this 
volume and is well satisfied with the results. 

It is a pity that the book is so costly — about $7.00 
a volume. I suppose it will not be republished in 
the United States on account of his severe stric- 
tures on the Federal Government for its war against 
the South. His "Antoninus" was published by Bohn, 
and so cheaply that they could not republish it at the 
North. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I3I 

You will be glad to know that Mr. Gladstone in 
1873 gave Mr. Long a pension of £100 a year on 
the civil list. He says it came to him without his 
asking for it (which he could not have done) and 
contrary to his expectation. 

I have always followed with much interest your 
distinguished career both before and since the war, 
and read with much pleasure everything from you. 
I was interested in your report on taxation and 
should like to see a perfect copy of it. 

With kindest regards and best wishes, 
I am, very truly your friend, 

H. Tutwiler. 

P. S. — If you ever see the Churchman, published 
in Hartford, you may be interested to know that 
the contributions of J. S. T., published last year 
and continued this year, are written by one of my 
daughters, who is at Steglitz, near Berlin, and has 
been in Germany nearly two years. 

From Miss Randolph: 

Shadwell Depot, Albemarle County, Va., 

Edgehill, November 2, 1875. 
Dear Mr. Hunter; 

I am afraid from my silence that you have thought 
we did not appreciate your' beautiful notice of our 
father as much as we do. Mr. Taylor, however, 
missed getting the number of the Whig which con- 
tained it, and we did not see the piece until my 
nephew had some copies of it struck off and sent to 
us. These we did not get until a few days ago. 

I cannot express to you, without seeming exag- 
geration, our great gratification at your eloquent 
tribute to our father's memory. The subject, the 



I32 A MEMOIR OF 

writer and the result are worthy of each other, and 
it is pleasant to us to know that this offering of 
friendship from you to one so dear to us is a com- 
position which of its kind would do honor to any 
pen. With sentiments of the sincerest respect and 
affectionate regard, I am, dear sir, 
Yours most respectfully, 

Sarah N. Randolph. 

In May, 1880, the retired statesman lost his 
sister Jane, whose death left him the last sur- 
vivor of the large family with whom he com- 
menced life, and in June, 1881, he was called 
upon to suffer a final and desolating bereave- 
ment. 

His youngest and tenderly loved daughter 
Evelyn, her mother's namesake, and special 
darling, died after a slow decline, an irrepara- 
ble loss to her family, whose affections were 
chiefly centered in her. Lovely and beloved, 
she attracted all who knew her by her graces 
of mind and person. 

Neither parent rallied from this blow, which 
broke the springs of life at a period when 
hope no longer encourages us to cherish vis- 
ions of future pleasure. In 1885, Mr. Cleve- 
land appointed Mr. Hunter Collector of the 
Port of Tappahannock, a position which he 
held at the time of his death. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 133 

The last years of his life were uneventful 
and devoted to home interests, especially 
those relating to his mill, which had been 
burned again in 1881. 

Owing to Mr. Hunter's exhausted finances, 
he could not have rebuilt it but for a timely 
loan from an unknown friend. In Mr. Micou's 
words, when concluding the sketch, now al- 
most wholly incorporated in these pages : 

" There have been few men in this country 
whose public career extended over a longer 
period, or who filled so many exalted positions 
with such conspicuous ability. 

" In private life he was distinguished for his 
simplicity of manner, his amiability and purity 
of character, and for the philosophy and 
equanimity with which he bore the reverses 
of fortune, as he was in public for his fervent 
patriotism, his unsurpassed ability, and his 
fidelity to duty. 

" No citizen of this 6r any other age has 
left a more stainless record, or is more wor- 
thy of having the memory of his services and 
virtues perpetuated in enduring bronze, and 
his example transmitted as a rich legacy to 
posterity. 

" Lee, the great soldier, at Lexington, 
teaching the youth of Virginia, by precept and 



134 A MEMOIR OF 

example, and Hunter, the great civilian, su- 
perintending his mill in Essex, illustrated by 
their lives the grand maxim of the former, 
' Human fortitude should be equal to human 
calamity/ and present to us a picture more 
touching and beautiful of that tranquil old 
age which follows a life devoted to duty, than 
that drawn by the pen of Cicero in his famous 
treatise on the subject." 

Three years before his death, Mr. Hunter 
was desperately ill with erysipelas, and his con- 
stitution never recovered from the shock. He 
weakened visibly, and in the summer of 1887 
it became evident that his days were num- 
bered. 

In May, 1887, he received the following let- 
ter from his old friend, Hon. Lewis E. Har- 
vie, who was evidently unaware of his condi- 
tion, which precluded any idea of his giving 
an entertainment, even if his birthday had not 
passed: 

Chula Depot, Va., May 8, 1887. 
My Dear Hunter: 

I observed in the Richmond paper yesterday that 
you and Mrs. Hunter propose to give an entertain- 
ment to your friends on the occasion of your 78th 
birthday. 

On the 50th anniversary of my marriage, three 
years ago, an entertainment was given to my friends. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 135 

These assemblages recall to my recollection the fact 
that we were at the university together, and from 
that time to the present we have never had a jar 
or a jostle. 

We entered public life together — first, in the 
Legislature of Virginia; subsequently you were 
elected to the lower house of Congress. We were 
bosom friends, and since then until your retire- 
ment from public life we have never once differed, 
as far as I recollect: I nearly succeeded while I 
was in the Legislature in sending you to the United 
States Senate, although I had but four votes in the 
State Senate. The joint order had to be broken to 
prevent it. I was called to account for it by the 
largest meeting that ever assembled in my county, 
which I defied; and against the strongest man in 
the county was returned by an overwhelming popu- 
lar majority, although I gave notice to every voter 
of my purpose to elect you. 

I did elect you at the next session to the Senate, 
and gave you one of the noblest gentlemen in the 
State as a colleague. He is dead, but you and I are 
still alive, with our relations unchanged and un- 
changeable. I am nearly blind and deaf and am 
unable to read at present. And, therefore, for food 
for reflection I am driven to a review of the past. 

Hence this letter. So far as you and I are con- 
cerned, our past is closed and we have no future. 
I wish to inform you of what you may not be 
apprised, that the office of State Treasurer, from 
which you were removed, was offered to me, with 
an absolute certainty of election, and I not only 
peremptorily refused it but announced the fact in 



I36 A MEMOIR OF 

the papers by my own authority. I wish to remind 
you of this (if you have forgotten it) before we die, 
as evidence of my warm personal regard. It seems 
to me that, among other changes which have taken 
place amongst public men, personal friendship has 
ceased to exist, and that love of country has gone 
to the tomb along with it. With cordial esteem and 
regard for Mrs. Hunter, I am still your friend, 

Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, Lloyds, Va. 

Lewis E. Harvie. 

P. S. — Poor Mason! I loved him, too, as a friend, 
and Mrs. Mason telegraphed me instantly the news 
of his death. 

He was a worthy descendant of George Mason. 

CONCLUSION. 

For several months before his death, Mr. 
Hunter's failing health had prevented any at- 
tention to business, and he could take very 
little exercise. He was conscious of his ap- 
proaching end, and met the last enemy with 
the calmness and fortitude which had distin- 
guished his life. 

He left messages of love and kindness for 
those of his family and friends who were not 
with him, and then quietly awaited the closing 
scene. It came on Monday, July 18, 1887, and 
he was buried at Elmwood, in the family cem- 
etery. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 37 

His beloved wife survived him for a few 
years, and in May, 1893, was laid beside him. 
Of her it has been fitly said that she made the 
world happier in passing through it, and her 
gracious memory dwells in the hearts of all 
who knew her. 



ADDENDA. 

Among Mr. Hunter's published efforts af- 
ter the war were his speech in Richmond, Au- 
gust 22, 1873, m favor of conservative nom- 
inees for State offices; speech before the South- 
ern Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia, 
October 27, 1874; letter to the Editor of the 
Whig, March 11, 1878. 






138 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 

AN ADDRESS ON HIS LIFE 

(Prepared for the Hunter Monument Association) 

BY 

COL. L. QUINTON WASHINGTON 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I4I 

Gentlemen : 

Some six years ago, in the town of Freder- 
icksburg, I had the honor to preside over a 
meeting composed of influential, citizens of this 
Commonwealth, when the initial steps were 
taken to organize an association for the pur- 
pose of removing the remains of the Hon. R. 
M. T. Hunter from their place of burial in 
Essex county, Va., to the capital of the State, 
at Richmond; and of erecting a monument at 
the tomb ; and also of arranging such other testi- 
monials of respect for his eminent public char- 
acter and services as might be deemed appro- 
priate. It is due to the Hon. J. B. Sener, of 
Fredericksburg, to state here that he was, so 
far as I know, the first person to suggest such 
action; and he has, with others, steadily cher- 
ished and promoted the consummation of this 
praiseworthy purpose. The Chair, by authority 
of the meeting, appointed a committee whose 
duty it was to obtain from the General Assem- 
bly of Virginia a special charter of incorpora- 
tion, for themselves and other citizens to be 
associated with them, to carry out the design 
of the meeting. That committee consisted of 
the following gentlemen : 



142 A MEMOIR OF 

Hon. T. R. B. Wright, of Essex; St. George 
R. Fitzhugh, Judge J. B. Sener, Rufus B. Mer- 
chant, and Hon. J. H. Kelly, of Fredericks- 
burg; William F. Drinkard, Joseph Bryan, 
William Ryan, Rev. Dr. John B. Newton, Gen- 
eral Archer Anderson, Colonel Frank G. Ruffin, 
and Judge Waller R. Staples, of Richmond; 
Ex-Governor Fitzhugh Lee, of Glasgow ; Judge 
William J. Robertson, of Charlottesville ; Gen- 
eral Eppa Hunton, of Warrenton; Major 
Holmes Conrad, of Winchester; Hon. John 
Goode, of Norfolk, and Hon. Taylor Berry, of 
Amherst. 

Most of these gentlemen were personal 
friends of the deceased statesman, but there 
was no purpose of limiting the committee, ex- 
cept to representative Virginians. 

This committee met at Richmond on Decem- 
ber 2, 1891, and were aided by the presence 
and counsel of a number of distinguished gen- 
tlemen, including members of the General As- 
sembly of Virginia. General Joseph R. Ander- 
son was elected chairman, and a committee was 
appointed to draft a charter of incorporation. 
The organization was afterwards perfected by 
the selection of a Board of Directors, with Dr. 
G. Watson James as secretary, and Colonel 
William H. Palmer as treasurer of the asso- 
ciation. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 143 

This body was incorporated by the General 
Assembly by act approved February 2, 1892, 
and all the powers then deemed necessary to 
promote the object were conferred upon the 
corporation. 

I need not dwell upon the impoverishment of 
many worthy citizens of Virginia, and the other 
causes which have impeded and postponed the 
execution of the objects for which this associa- 
tion was formed. The question for us today 
is, Can these obstacles be removed and our de- 
sign consummated? It will not fail. It must 
not fail. We meet here today in the very 
county in which Robert M. T. Hunter was 
born, and where his home was; in the county 
that he loved ; among the very people, or their 
children, whom he loved and respected, and 
whose unfailing confidence was to him always 
an inspiration and a just source of pride; to 
further this tribute to the most distinguished 
son of Essex. There can be no honor paid to 
his memory that does not also reflect honor 
upon this old county on the Rappahannock 
and upon the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

I would not be justified in obtruding upon 
your patience a full and complete account of 
Mr. Hunter's life and public services. That 
duty devolves upon his biographer, and the 



144 A MEMOIR OF 

future historian who shall faithfully narrate the 
history of the country from the year 1836 down 
to the time when the conquest of the Southern 
States relegated so many of their eminent sons 
to poverty and private station. But surely I 
may be permitted in brief phrase to glance at 
the distinguished, influential and useful part 
borne by this great, but modest, Virginian dur- 
ing the critical era in which his life was cast. 
It was often a time that tried men's souls, and 
only the pure gold survived the crucible. 

Mr. Hunter was born in this little county on 
the 21st April, 1809. It is a country neigh- 
borhood, without a city or a large town, sparsely 
settled in his time and ours. I am aware, and 
probably you are, that there is a modern school 
of thought which assumes that for an intel- 
lectual growth a man should be born and reared 
in a city or a closely settled neighborhood — a 
hothouse, so to speak, in which his brain and 
energies are to be stimulated to the highest 
degree. But history gives little warrant for 
such an assumption. The great men of this 
country certainly were nearly all of them coun- 
try bred. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe, Calhoun, Patrick Henry, John Mar- 
shall, George Mason, John Randolph, Henry 
Clay, Henry A. Wise, Abel P. Upshur, William 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I45 

C. Rives, Silas Wright, Thomas H. Benton, 
Andrew Jackson, Francis P. Blair, Abraham 
Lincoln, William J. Bryan, and many more I 
could adduce were the product of country life — 
of plantation life, and almost without exception 
had not only the plantation manners in which 
dignity and good breeding were happily blend- 
ed, but possessed also the genius and force in 
affairs which plantation life and duties had 
tended to develop. You do not find the best 
trees among those which are crowded close 
together. Individuality, self-reliance, decision, 
thoughtfulness, study, gentleness, charity, 
truth, purity of morals — all these noblest ad- 
juncts to mental growth and distinction flourish 
on the farm far better than in the heat and dust 
and turmoil of the great city with its wealthy 
few and unfortunate multitude. Born on the 
plantation, loving nature and honest country 
folk, our great statesman was through his en- 
tire public career always happy and eager to 
return to his home and native air in Essex. He 
did not linger in Washington, or even Rich- 
mond, longer than his public functions abso- 
lutely required. 

So, if I were called on to specify the forma- 
tive influences of Mr. Hunter's character, I 
should certainly include country life, planta- 



I46 A MEMOIR OF 

tion life, and influences, association and sym- 
pathy with the country people of Virginia, the 
fireside and historical traditions of the old Com- 
monwealth, the study of history, and especially 
of Virginia history, and of the character and 
teachings of her great men. He was proud of 
them all in his own modest, gentle way; and 
to the very last very proud of the Common- 
wealth which had called him so often to her 
service, and called him because he represented 
perfectly and fully the best type of Virginia 
character and principles. 

Mr. Hunter was, indeed, fortunate in those 
surroundings and early associations which go 
so far to shape character and to develop a sure 
and healthful growth of every faculty. He was 
extremely fortunate also in being an alumnus 
of that grand institution of learning, the Uni- 
versity of Virginia — the favorite child of the 
illustrious Jefferson, the first university of this 
country, and very long the only one, and the 
first, as I conceive, to embody in our land the 
breadth, wise liberality, thoroughness of cul- 
ture and high standards of scholarship and 
character, which were needed to equip a young 
man for a great professional or political career. 
This scholastic training, the fruits of which 
pervade all Mr. Hunter's public addresses, was 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I47 

followed by the study of law at Winchester 
under the invaluable direction of Judge Henry 
St. George Tucker. 

His public life began when he was 25 years 
of age. He was elected a member of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia. Young as he was, 
we find them discussing the more serious and 
difficult questions of finance and banking. The 
great political questions on which parties were 
dividing also came before the Legislature, as 
they had done often in the old days. Mr. 
Hunter met these issues upon a consistent the- 
ory of constitutional construction and policy, 
yet one of perfect independence from extremes 
of party bigotry and dictation. He aimed only 
to get the truth and to be right. At the very 
outset and in the very flush and ardor of youth, 
he displayed the moderation and equipoise 
which characterized his career to the close. 

He was then, as always, an advocate of a 
strict construction of the Federal Constitution 
and of States' rights. He regarded these ideas 
as the very foundation-stone of political liberty 
and good government. The special friends of 
that creed first elected him to Congress in the 
year 1837. He took a part in the debates of 
the House. How well he bore himself may be 



1 



m 



I48 A MEMOIR OF 

judged by the fact that at the very next Con- 
gress he was chosen Speaker of the House of 
Representatives. He was then only 30 years 
of age. Among his predecessors in this very 
high office were Nathaniel Macon, Henry Clay, 
Langdon Cheves, Philip P. Barbour, Andrew 
Stevenson, John Bell and James K. Polk. Polk 
was his immediate predecessor as Speaker. To 
the next Congress Mr. Hunter was again 
chosen a representative. In this body he had 
occasion to discuss all the great party questions 
of the day which preceded the sectional ques- 
tion — the last a mere cloud in the sky at that 
day, but destined soon to loom up and obscure 
the entire horizon. Thrown by a new appor- 
tionment into a partially new congressional dis- 
trict, he was beaten as a candidate for the 
Twenty-eighth Congress by a small majority; 
but two years afterwards he was easily elected 
to the twenty-ninth Congress. This was the 
first Congress of Mr. Polk, whom he had helped 
to elect to the presidency. In this Congress he 
promoted the establishment of the Independent 
Treasury — a measure strongly opposed, but 
which vindicated itself and soon ceased to be 
a party issue. He also earnestly supported the 
celebrated revenue tariff bill of 1846, known 
in after years as the Walker tariff; and he also 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER I4Q 

favored the warehouse system. The last meas- 
use was largely, if not wholly, his work. Its 
vast importance and place in modern commer- 
cial transactions is known to every merchant 
in the land ; but how few of them know and are 
grateful to the statesman who did most to give 
it a permanent place in our fiscal system! On 
the subject of the tariff Mr. Hunter followed 
the teachings of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Mc- 
Culloch, and the great political economists of 
Europe, whose works have built up the doctrine 
of free exchange of products, upheld in this 
country by Jefferson, Calhoun, Silas Wright, 
and numbers of our greatest thinkers and 
patriots, and held abroad by Peel, Cobden, 
Bright, Bastiat and Gladstone. 

In the same Congress he actively and most 
wisely promoted the retrocession of Alexandria 
to Virginia — a policy dear to every heart in the 
Commonwealth, and destined, as I hope, never 
to be surrendered at the bidding of alien specu- 
lators and jobbers. The long and dangerous 
contention with England over the Oregon 
boundary was also settled at this Congress by 
the wise and patriotic statesmanship of Web- 
ster, Calhoun and Benton. In this patriotic 
work Air. Hunter co-operated. But it required 
no common nerve and sagacity for a public 



150 A MEMOIR OF 

man to take then a position which all can now 
see and admit was the very essence of wisdom 
and statecraft. It was a race for empire, and 
our country, with greatly inferior naval power 
and no easy land communication at that hour 
across the Continent, has won the race. We 
sacrificed a pawn to win a queen. A war with 
England at that time might have cost us Ore- 
gon and the whole coast. 

By this time — 1846 — the war with Mexico 
had begun, and the slavery agitation had 
broken out afresh by the claim of the anti- 
slavery agitators to apply the Wilmot proviso 
interdicting the carrying of slaves to any coun- 
try which might be acquired from Mexico as 
the result of a successful war. Mr. Hunter 
cherished the union of the States, and he loved 
peace always ; but, pacific as he was by nature 
and principle, he would not consent to any 
measure that destroyed the equality of the 
Southern States in the Federal Union. At that 
very hour two-thirds of the soldiers, imperilling 
their lives for the country in the Mexican war, 
were from the South, and more than half the 
others were Democrats who disapproved of the 
abolition crusade. Perhaps, however, I ought 
to bear in mind that ingratitude is the cardinal 
principle of modern politics. 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 151 

In 1846 Mr. Hunter was elected by the Gen- 
eral Assembly to the United States Senate. He 
took his seat in December, 1847. As a result 
of the reputation he had already acheived in 
the other branch of Congress, he was placed 
on the Finance Committee — by far the most 
important committee of the Senate, and the 
one having charge then not only of all revenue 
measures, but also of all the appropriations of 
the National Government. At the session of 
1850-51 Mr. Hunter became the chairman of 
the Finance Committee. " The revenue is the 
State," said a great statesman of the Old World. 

Mr. Hunter's tastes and studies fitted him 
especially for all this class of questions. To 
recount his work upon them would be impos-' 
sible. He filled this position up to the spring 
of 1 861, when he left the Senate. On all the 
questions and topics belonging to this commit- 
tee he had the unbounded confidence of his 
brother senators of every party and section. 
His integrity, purity and knowledge of affairs 
gave him an almost absolute veto on everything 
corrupt, base or dangerous in fiscal legislation. 
He was deemed a safe, conservative man; a 
vratch-dog of the Treasury — not a mere bark- 
ing dog, but a faithful and incorruptible senti- 
nel. He shaped and carried through the com- 



152 A MEMOIR OF 

promise tariff bill of 1857 — a measure sup- 
ported not only by the Democrats, but by many 
prominent Northern Republicans; by William 
H. Seward, Henry Wilson, N. P. Banks, Sal- 
mon P. Chase, and others. They were content 
to follow a Virginian of the Virginians. His 
statement of what any provision in a bill he 
had in charge meant or effected was enough. 
His candor and truth were a power and a pillar 
of fire. You have today at Washington a great 
court to examine and consider claims against 
the United States Government. The govern- 
ment creditor, instead of vainly hanging around 
Congress and growing gray-haired in a hope- 
less quest for justice, has his " day in court." 
Search the history of this court and you find 
its sure prop and pillar, the life tenure of its 
judges, is the proposition of your man of Essex. 
He helped to breathe into it the breath of life 
and to organize it upon an enduring and im- 
pregnable basis of judicial impartiality and in- 
dependence. 

You hear much nowadays of " civil-service 
reform " and of applying the merit system to 
all minor and clerical employments of the Fed- 
eral Government. Who was the first man <"o 
move in this matter? I answer that one of 
the first to agitate the subject, the one who 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 53 

made it a hcbby from year to year, and who 
finally formulated a wise and practical measure 
to effect it, was again your man of Essex — R. 
M. T. Hunter. It passed in his very words, and 
thus became the law of the land. It is a sound, 
sensible, moderate and constitutional measure. 
If it were the law today, and duly enforced and 
had never been tampered with by demagogues 
and ignorant men, it would secure efficient em- 
ployees for the government, protect their ten- 
ure better than your present law, protect also 
the best interests of the government, and it 
would be an admirable substitute for the pres- 
ent bastard system of cant and hypocrisy, 
doubtful in its constitutionality, and almost uni- 
versally regarded as having sunk into evasion, 
trickery and fraud, with features that no sen- 
sible business-man, no president of a bank or 
manager of a business establishment ever acts 
upon in private life. I say, therefore, that we 
are indebted to Mr. Hunter for the only good 
law ever passed upon this 'subject. 

We have had on two continents, and especially 
on this continent, a long and heated controversy 
over the coinage question. It has engaged the 
intellects of the ablest men in modern times. 
In 1851, 1852 and 1853, long before parties 
ever divided on this question, Mr. Hunter, as 



154 A MEMOIR OF 

chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 
found it in his pathway and dealt with it ex- 
haustively. Rejecting the shallow Mine-Bureau 
plan of Mr. Secretary Corwin — an echo of the 
British system of coinage, not offensively, but 
simply ignoring it — he formulated a measure 
regulating the coinage which passed the Senate 
unanimously, without debate, precisely as he 
wrote it and upon his sole ipse dixit. Next, 
but after some delay, this identical measure 
passed the House of Representatives and be- 
came a law in February, 1853 — to remain the 
law of the land without question or cavil from 
Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson 
and Grant. Such was his power in the United 
States Senate in a period of fierce party strife on 
a great organic and economic question, oppos- 
ing, as he did then, the Secretary's recom- 
mendation. I have heard or read this coinage 
debate from 1874, when it began, till now, over 
twenty years of parliamentary struggle, and if 
I were called upon to name a document which 
best expounds the true principles of finance and 
statesmanship on this difficult subject, and in 
a perfectly unanswerable manner, free from ill- 
temper or bias and full of wise prescience and 
overwhelming argument, I should name the re- 
port made by Robert M. T. Hunter in March, 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 55 

1852, to the United States Senate, which ac- 
companied the bill proposed by him to regulate 
the gold and silver coinage. 

Mr. Hunter spoke also on foreign affairs as 
such questions came up. He was conservative 
by nature and habit. He did not love or desire 
sectional controversy, but in that trying period 
of agitation and controversy he stood by the 
institutions, the. civilization and the constitu- 
tional rights of the South. He did this with- 
out sectional or personal rancor, but with a 
firmness, learning, eloquence and argumentative 
power that made him second to none in the de- 
bate, The very men who voted against him on 
these sectional questions never impugned his 
motives or questioned his ability, and on the 
fiscal and administrative questions which were 
especially confined to his care they trusted him 
far more than they trusted each other. Can 
you imagine a more splendid triumph of Vir- 
ginia mind and character? 

I have preferred to speak not so much of his 
stand on party or sectional questions as on 
measures and policies where he acted with or 
led men of both parties. This sketch is but a 
passing glance at a long, laborious and brilliant 
career. Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Clay and Mr. Web- 
ster all left the Senate, or died in the Senate, 



I56 A MEMOIR OF 

about 185 1 or 1852. When this grand trium- 
virate had departed there were yet many strong 
men who served in that body with Mr. Hunter 
from 1850 to 1861 who have made a great im- 
press upon our history. I need hardly mention 
such great names as Senators Mason, Toombs, 
Jefferson Davis, Benjamin, Stephen A. Doug- 
las, Seward, Sumner, Chase, Trumbull, Bayard, 
Slidell and Crittenden. Yet I can truthfully 
assert that of this list of very able men not one 
was superior in general, all-'round ability to 
Mr. Hunter; not one was his equal in legis- 
lative force and influence ; not one was so uni- 
versally confided in and trusted. Since the pass- 
ing away of Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and 
Monroe hardly any Virginian has borne so in- 
fluential a part in political affairs as R. M. T. 
Hunter, and certainly no Virginian has done 
so in the Federal Congress, though the Com- 
monwealth has had many sons who were wise 
and eloquent in council. To be pre-eminent, or 
even prominent, in such a galaxy as hers, de- 
manded the very highest qualities of mind and 
character. 

When the great and regrettable contest be- 
tween the North and the South arose, Mr. Hun- 
ter held that the South was simply standing on 
her constitutional rights. He held that it was 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 157 

her right and duty to resist aggression. He 
stated his position in temperate, thoughtful, 
conciliatory, but firm, language. At no time of 
his life did he for one moment doubt the perfect 
justice and truth of the Southern cause. I met 
and conferred with him frequently during the 
winter of 1 860-61, preceding the civil conflict. 
Gladly would he have welcomed a settlement 
between the contending States on the firm basis 
of constitutional rights for both sections, safety 
for his own people, malice and injury to none, 
and an enduring peace with honor. That was 
not to be. He left the Senate in March, 1861, 
following not the suggestions of personal am- 
bition or his own interest, but the hard and 
rugged path of duty. Very soon afterwards 
the Commonwealth of Virginia sent him as 
one of her representatives to the new govern- 
ment at Montgomery. He performed that mis- 
sion. On the 2 1 st of July/1861, he was called 
by President Davis to take the position of Secre- 
tary of State for the Confederacy, from which 
Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, had resigned. He 
filled that important trust with eminent ability 
until the new, or " permanent," Confederate 
Constitution and Government went into opera- 
tion on the 22d of February, 1862. 



158 A MEMOIR OF 

Prior to that event the Commonwealth of 
Virginia elected Mr. Hunter, and as I remem- 
ber, unanimously, to the Confederate Senate. 
It was a most critical period and demanded the 
greatest ability and resource, both in the execu- 
tive and legislative departments of the already 
hard-pressed Confederacy. Mr. Hunter was 
made president pro tempore of the Senate. His 
influence was great and commanding. His ad- 
vice, counsel and influence were not only felt 
and welcomed in all the great measures of mili- 
tary defense and equipment then adopted, but 
even in the selection of officers for important 
commands. He was a steady friend of Presi- 
dent Davis in respect to all the great measures 
of defense and supply. He had the friendship 
and confidence of Mr. Davis and his Cabinet; 
of James A. Seddon, John A. Campbell, Gra- 
ham, Cobb, Lamar, Curry, Letcher, Bocock, 
Harvie, Caperton, Joe Johnston and Robert E. 
Lee. He was one of the first to discover and 
appreciate the superb genius of Stonewall Jack- 
son. He counselled often with Robert E. Lee, 
relied on his ripe judgment, and gave him his 
fullest support. In all fiscal and economic 
measures he naturally took the lead. Respect- 
ing and trusting Secretaries Memminger and 
Trenholm, he, nevertheless, originated all the 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 1 59 

general features of Confederate finance. With an 
infant republic, compelled by a powerful adver- 
sary to incur an enormous war expenditure, and 
not able to export its surplus products or even 
fully to raise them for the markets, it is not 
strange that Confederate money should have 
sunk to so low an ebb as it finally did. The only 
wonder is that ft did not fall much earlier and 
more rapidly. We may recall with instruction 
and profit the fate of the assignats of the French 
Revolutionary Government and of the Conti- 
nental money of our first Confederacy of 1776. 
Had the second Confederacy proved a military 
success, as did the first one, and as the first 
French republic did, possibly the fertile mind of 
Hunter might have been able to devise some 
solution of the financial problem based on ripe 
experience and a study of modern conditions ; 
but after four years of noble and fearful strug- 
gle against gigantic odds^our righteous cause 
went down in gloom and disaster. All was lost 
save honor. The public careers of Hunter, 
Davis, Lee, and many more, were virtually 
closed at this point ; but their names, the memo- 
ries of their splendid services, their virtues, 
and, still more, their sacrifices, will never be for- 
gotten by the people of the South or by the pen 
of history. 



l60 A MEMOIR OF 

Mr. Hunter realized towards the close of the 
struggle the hopelessness of a protracted con- 
test, and he was anxious to do something to 
save the South from total subjugation and a 
conquest without any terms of peace. The prob- 
lem proved an impracticable one, for reasons 
on which I may speak another time, but his mo- 
tives were humane, disinterested and pure, as 
they always were. The blame for failure be- 
longs to the ambitious men at Washington, who, 
seeing final victory almost in their grasp, would 
not spare either Southern misery or Northern 
blood in their stern purpose to become absolute 
masters of the situation. The Government of 
the Union being thus re-established by the 
sword, Mr. Hunter regarded it as his duty to 
accept the Union in good faith, and, as a good 
citizen, to co-operate with patriotic men in every 
section to restore the reign of law and order and 
the Federal Constitution. This was the senti- 
ment of Virginia and the South. It was deeply 
unfortunate that this sentiment was not at once 
recognized and acted on by the dominant party, 
instead of adopting, as they did, the policy of 
hate, military rule and disfranchisement. Men 
like Hunter, Campbell, Baldwin, Stephens and 
Lee ought to have been invited to public posi- 
tions to help to restore the old Union, and then, 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER l6l 

instead of a vulgar sectional conquest, keeping 
the South as a mere province for long, weary 
years, to be harried and plundered and lied 
about, there would have been a genuine restora- 
tion of the Union and a rapid growth of the old 
national feeling, in which consists the real 
strength of the republic. Well did the eloquent 
Kossuth say : " Hatred is no good counsellor." 
No government built on hate can stand, or 
cught to stand. 

In this sketch I have omitted much and I 
have elaborated nothing. A regard for your 
time, and fOr the superior knowledge of many 
of those around me, admonishes me to be as 
brief as possible. I will not close, however, 
without averring my belief that not even George 
Washington himself (to whose character and 
services Mr. Hunter has rendered the most 
original and instructive tribute ever uttered by 
man) was more pure, disinterested and patri- 
otic than he was in his public action. Gentle- 
ness, charity and truth were bound up in his 
very nature. Of malice he had none. He was 
not devoid of ambition, but he had none of the 
vulgar arts of self-seeking, and the distinctions 
which came to him so often came unsought. 
He was easv of access, affable to the humblest 



l62 A MEMOIR OF 

citizen, always open to the suggestion and ad- 
vice of his friends ; never dogmatic or disputa- 
tious, never rash or aggressive. In his time of 
greatest prosperity and power he was modest 
almost to diffidence. When trial and adversity 
came, as they did, " not as single spies, but in 
battalions," he bore deprivation and affliction 
with a singular fortitude. He suffered with 
and for the South. A special expedition of 
marauders was dispatched by Butler, which, 
emulating the savagery of the British during 
the revolutionary war in Virginia, destroyed his 
plantation in his absence. 

After the war closed he was made a State 
prisoner, imprisoned at Fort Pulaski, subjected 
to coarse and brutal treatment such as no South- 
ern gentleman ever deals out to a negro, and 
when a beloved child was being borne to the 
grave, he, who never harmed or wished to harm 
a human being, was denied the privilege of 
dropping a tear on the grave or offering comfort 
to the bereaved mother. He was not sordid. 
He was too old-fashioned for that. His life at 
Washington as a senator of great influence was 
as simple and unostentatious as that of any 
plain Virginia farmer. With ample opportuni- 
ties for acquiring wealth in public office, he 
amassed nothing, and the results of the war 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 163 

left him poor indeed. He died a poor man — 
poor in this world's goods, but rich, immeas- 
urably rich, in honor. I knew him long and 
closely. To know him was to love and venerate 
him. To know him and to have enjoyed his 
friendship and confidence till the hour of his 
death I shall alvvays count as a privilege, and a 
most precious remembrance. 

To the rear of the present hall of the House 
of Representatives, at Washington, there is a 
long gallery in which are hung up the portraits 
of all the illustrious men who have been the 
Speakers of the body. There you see Henry 
Clay, Cobb, Andrew Stevenson, Polk, Kerr, 
Randall, James G. Blaine, and the present able 
occupant of the chair, Mr. Reed. There, too, 
you see the youthful, almost boyish, face of 
Speaker R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, ingenu- 
ous, open, true, and strong. There is no dark 
shadow on that brow, no wrinkle written by sor- 
row and care, but rather the light of hope and of 
a confident, brave soul. To me, as I wander 
there and involuntarily turn my gaze upon it, 
there is hardly anything more touching than to 
contrast, as I must, this portrait with the sad- 
dened, melancholy face which haunts my mem- 
ory of him who, burdened with private grief 



164 A MEMOIR OF 

and public calamity, had, like the patriot Grat- 
tan, survived the liberties of his country, and 
who, loving Virginia as he did, was called on to 
witness and mourn the unspeakable shame of a 
great State that had given Washington and Jef- 
ferson to the country, and by the wisdom and 
patriotism of her sons had secured to all the 
colonies freedom and a government of consent, 
subjugated by arms, plundered, oppressed and 
scourged by the very communities she had so 
generously warmed into life. He saw the sad 
story of Poland's conquest and dismemberment, 
so eloquently told by the poet Campbell, repro- 
duced in the New World, with fresh horrors 
and the added element of ingratitude by the 
conquerors. He saw his mother — Virginia — 
with bleeding breast, in her hour of agony — 

" Find not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe." 

I have said Mr. Hunter was a conservative. 
No man loved truth more, or was quicker to 
discern abstract principles ; but in action for the 
State he belonged to the wise school of Edmund 
Burke. His theory of public duty was the at- 
tainment of the best political results under ex- 
isting conditions and circumstances. He would 
take the half loaf. His mind was eminently 



ROBERT M. T. HUNTER 165 

practical. He did not seek to tear down insti- 
tutions, but to build up, to preserve what was 
good, to develop so as to gain a basis for na- 
tional growth and the constant betterment of 
the masses. He opposed all class legislation. 
He was a friend to vested rights and to prop- 
erty and compacts. Peace, conciliation, fair 
argument, a study of the harmonies of our sys- 
tem — these were the weapons of his intellectual 
armory. The lessons of history were impressed 
into the very web and woof of his mind. Had 
he lived in the days of Jefferson, that great 
man would have called on him no less than on 
Madison to employ his fertile mind and ready 
pen to expound those doctrines of liberty and 
constitutional freedom which have made a great 
school of thought, destined to live as long as 
this republic shall survive. 

More than any one whom I have known in 
civic trusts, Mr. Hunter reminds me of the 
distinguished men of that revolutionary period 
— men strong, learned, composed, equal to any 
trust ; who did not derive honor from office, but 
who dignified and ennobled public station. We 
have not had the great privilege of looking on 
the faces of those who built that wonderful edi- 
fice of free, constitutional government ; but it is 
something to have known, as you and I have 






i 



l66 A MEMOIR OF 






done, one who embodied so well in his character, 
mind and purposes the best traditions of the 
heroic period of our republic, suggesting, as it 
does, the fervent, assured hope that the admir- 
ation of public virtue, which so deeply animates 
our people will bear rich fruit in after years, and 
continue to bring forth in every crisis that may 
come worthy men to serve the State and uphold 
the fame of Virginia. 



->;: 






